This sermon emphasizes the divine origin and transformative power of God’s Word, drawn from 2 Timothy 3:16-17. It explores how Scripture teaches, reproves, corrects, and trains believers, enabling them to live righteously and experience God’s blessings.
Transcript
And so I think maybe we should go ahead and listen to it once again, recognizing God’s providence in such things. One of the things that that emphasizes is how we do often sing the very words of Scripture, paraphrases like the one we’ve just sung, how close that is to God’s Word. You can see that as we read this morning. The emphasis today is on the voice of the Lord, the Word of God. And so it’s appropriate that we have just sung about it and that we read these words again.
The voice of the Lord. Psalm of David. This is God’s holy and inerrant Word.
Ascribe to the Lord, O sons of the mighty, ascribe to the Lord glory and strength. Ascribe to the Lord the glory due His name. Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness. The voice of the Lord is upon the waters. The God of glory thunders. The Lord is over many waters. The voice of the Lord is powerful. The voice of the Lord is majestic. The voice of the Lord breaks the cedars. Yes, the Lord breaks in pieces the cedars of Lebanon. He makes Lebanon skip like a calf and Sirion like a young wild ox. The voice of the Lord uses out flames of fire. The voice of the Lord shakes the wilderness. The Lord shakes the wilderness of Kadesh. The voice of the Lord makes the deer to calve and strips the forest bare. And in His temple, everything says glory. The Lord sat as King at the flood. Yes, the Lord sits as King forever. The Lord will give strength to His people. The Lord will bless His people with peace.
The Word of God.
The Divine Origin and Purpose of Scripture
Please open your Bible this morning to Second Timothy chapter 3. For those of you who have been with us for quite a few years and for those of you who are still with us, you may have noticed, I don’t know if I’ve ever called attention to it, but usually on the first Sunday of the year, I usually talk about the Bible itself. I usually try to focus on the Word of God, because the Word of God is particularly it’s the whole focus. It’s the whole focus of our ministry and is what all transforming grace comes to us through the ministry of the Word of God. And as we’ve already observed this morning in that informal way, we are a Bible church. We are a church that’s dedicated to teaching the whole Word of God through reading, through preaching, and through song as we did a few minutes ago, and through prayer. We pray very often, as I did partly this morning, the very words of Scripture back to the Lord. The Word of God is central. And so it is important that we recognize. We believe that the Bible is the Word of God, verbally inspired without error in its original manuscripts and written under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit of God.
So that’s why I want us to call your attention to this verse again in Second Timothy, beginning in verse 16. We’ll read 16 and 17:
All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.
Let’s ask God’s blessing on this passage as we study it today. Father, as we reflect on this passage, we thank you for its truth, that we have a trustworthy text before us, and not just trustworthy, but it’s your very Word. Help us to recognize that truth. And I pray, Father, that you help this truth to resonate in our hearts so that we respect your Word, so that we believe it, so that we obey it. We ask this in Christ’s name. Amen.
The Apostle Paul writes his letters to people going through difficulties. As we’ve learned in our study in 1 Corinthians, it’s written to that local church in Corinth. That whole letter we spent a great deal of last year looking at is all about the local church. The struggles that that particular local church is having, and God preserved that letter for us because most churches struggle with those same issues. And so, God writes His Word to us in this world that is filled with all sorts of conflict and difficulty and troubles, to His people. It’s a message to us. And there was no difference in this letter that Paul wrote to Timothy. In fact, he anticipated troubles that the church would have. If you look at the very first opening verses of chapter 3, it says,
“Realize this, that in the last days, difficult times will come. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, having a form of godliness, but denying its power.”
How are we to live in a world like that? And that is, I think you recognize, very much the world that we live in. This is the character of people. It’s the character of people that we are around all the time, and too often, it’s the character of people who occasionally come to church.
In order to live in a difficult world, God has equipped us. He’s given us a book to encourage us, to give us salvation and hope. That’s the point of the Word of God. It’s a book of salvation. It’s a book that gives us hope. Remember these words in Ephesians, Paul prays that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened so that you know what is the hope of His calling, that is, you’ll know what the hope of your salvation is. He gives us that through the Word of God. Romans 15:4 it says,
“Whatever was written in earlier times was written for our instruction.”
So that’s one of the wonderful things about the Word of God is that the Bible, this Bible was written for you. It’s written for you. God gave us this book and He wrote these things. It says in John 20:31,
“These things are written that you might believe.”
And then 1 John 5 it says,
“These things I’ve written to you that you may know.”
And in the passage in Romans that I read,
“These things are written in earlier times was written for our instruction so that through perseverance and encouragement of the Scriptures, we might have hope.”
God encourages us and gives us hope through His holy Word.
The Divine Power of God’s Word
So what is it about the Word of God that gives us hope? Well, this verse says,
“All Scripture is inspired by God.”
That means literally, God-breathed. That’s what that word inspiration means. It is the God-breathed Word. All Scripture is God-breathed. It is the Spirit of God gives forth the Word of God. It’s not an ordinary book. It’s it’s been breathed out by the Holy Spirit of God. The Bible is coming from His breath. And that’s why we call this the Word of God.
You know, we we do this all the time. We carry this book around with us. We call it the Word of God. Do we ever really think about that? It’s the Word of God. The Creator God, the all-powerful God has entrusted to us a Word. And He’s given it to us in this book. He’s communicated His thoughts to us. I mean, we come together, we we read God’s Word, and we come together to hear God’s Word and to understand God’s Word. And my job as a preacher, my job as a minister is a very simple job at its core, at its base. All I do is tell you what it says, what God says, in His Word. I come to a passage like this, and I’m simply paraphrase and reiterate and say exactly what it says. My goal and my prayer is to stay in the truth so I don’t depart from it, to just simply bring the message. I’m a messenger boy. That’s not a role that has any particular dignity.
You know, you don’t you don’t really think that the person, we don’t get many messages these days. You know, we don’t have many people knock on our door and read a telegram to us, like you used to a few years ago. But the messenger boy wasn’t honored particularly. Might have been given a tip, but not honored particularly. The important thing was the message. What you answered that door for, and what you received was the content. And that’s my role, is to explain, to be able to to restate, to communicate the content so that you know what God’s Word says.
So, God wrote this book, gave this book to us and in in in out of grace, has given gifted people to the church. Each one of you, gifted people, to minister in every one of us, ministers in some way, through the Word of God. So, you know, it’s an incredible thing. It is a book, but this book is a book that contains it it is the very Word of God. Now, I like books. I like to read. And I like to read all kinds of books. I like to read stories that are novels every now and then. I like to read books that are often generally often books that are non-fiction, and quite often books about the Bible or theology and things like that. But most any book, well every book in fact, contains a spiritual message. I don’t know if you’ve ever thought about that.
If you read something like Moby Dick, you can read a story like Moby Dick. And as you read that story, you experience, you can read it because it, you know, it’s a wonderful, I’m sorry to say, way to tell the story. I don’t know why I’m doing that today. I apologize. You can read a book like that. The point of reading something like that is because you experience something that you otherwise can’t experience. You what is it like to go back to the 19th century and work on a whaling ship? I would have no way of knowing that. But I can tell you who did know all about it. And that was the writer. Melville knew exactly what that was like because that was part of his own experience. And when he wrote that book, he conveyed his thoughts, Melville’s thoughts. The spirit of Melville was active in writing that book and conveyed truths about his own lives that we can read and experience, so that we share in Melville’s thoughts.
Well, the Bible is far more than that. It’s the it’s the thoughts and the breath of God. It’s the very Word of God. And this is, you know, it’s it’s important. Life, it’s a life-giving breath from God. God breathes into Adam. Adam becomes a living soul. If somebody should faint and you wonder if they’re dead, you know, one of the old things people used to do, I don’t know, they probably still do it, is there any breath? Breath is so faint. How can you tell if they’re breathing, their heart’s beating? Well, you hold the mirror up to their mouth and if fogged up and oh, you know, there’s still some breath there. Breath is necessary for life. And God gives us life through His living Word, which is God-breathed. It’s not an ordinary book. And these aren’t ordinary words that we read. These are the very thoughts of God that are God-breathed. And when we read God’s Word, it’s an active force to change us. We can be changed through the Word of God. It’s a powerful force for action.
Paul says that God is able to do far more abundantly than all we ask or think. Ephesians 3:20. And he calls God the Almighty. We we think about that. We know that’s true of God, don’t we? That God is the Almighty God, the Creator of this vast universe, all that there is, galaxies and galaxies. God is the one who created it all. And He possesses the our Lord Jesus possesses all power and authority. Remember we just got through the Christmas story that angel says to Mary,
“With God nothing will be impossible.”
And Jesus says,
“With God all things are possible.”
That means that God’s power is infinite. He can do anything that His holy will desires to do. Nothing is limited to what to to to the will of God. He can actually do whatever He wishes to do, whatever He would like to do. The power of God and the Word of God. And the way He accomplishes things is through His Word. You know, all of the creation, light and the creation, all that comes through the spoken Word of God.
“By the Word of the Lord, the heavens were made and all their hosts by the breath of His mouth, for He spoke and it came to be, and He commanded and it stood forth.”
The Lord said to Jeremiah,
“Behold, I put my words in your mouth, see I have set you this day over nations and over kingdoms to pluck up, to break down, to destroy and to overthrow, to build and to plant.”
It’s the Word of God that makes those changes, that changes things. What God spoke through the prophet wasn’t just something that was said, it wasn’t just information, but it has a power behind it. The God-breathed Word is life-giving and it’s powerful and it’s the creative force of God. But just because we hold God’s Word, we have it on a shelf at home, or even read it. It doesn’t mean that we have access to that power really, not completely.
Yesterday was New Year’s Day. They had the Rose Bowl, and I think Ohio won narrowly. I didn’t watch the game. And before the Rose Bowl is always the parade. And I think yesterday, in yesterday’s parade, the winning float was UPS Stores. I don’t remember if I’m remembering that right. I think it was the UPS Stores that had, you know, a float of that was had to do with a big rooster that was reading a book to its chicks. And it was about the slogan was “Rise, Shine, and Read.” It’s a good good slogan. And I was thinking about that because I remember hearing a story a good while ago. It was J. Vernon McGee story, another one of those. And he experienced this first hand. He was at the Rose Bowl parade. And as at the at the Rose Bowl parade, he’s watching all these beautiful floats go by, and all of a sudden the whole thing slows down, because one parade was one of the floats that was going along started sputtering, stopped, and then it held up all the rest of them. And they couldn’t go because this one was stuck.
And the reason it was stuck is because it had run out of gas. And the really interesting thing about it was that it was a a beautiful float covered with roses, and it was sponsored by the Standard Oil Company. And that’s, and you know, McGee says it made me laugh when I realized what had just happened. They had all the resources with all these thousands of of of gallons of oil, I mean, thousands, good grief. Millions of gallons of oil. And yet couldn’t access any of it for that one for the vehicle when they needed it. We have access to God and the power of God through His Word. He’s given it to us. But it has to be it’s applied to our hearts by the Spirit. And it has to be received and appropriated to have benefit.
It’s the God-breathed Word. It is life-giving and powerful and it can change us, but only if it’s appropriated.
Living by the Word: Training in Righteousness
The verse says that it teaches. All Scripture is God-breathed and useful for teaching. Teaches us important truths about life and salvation, how we are to function in the body of Christ. We’ve been spending a great deal of time, I mentioned earlier, in 1 Corinthians and in studying the book of 1 Corinthians as we went through chapter to chapter 12, and that whole book is about the local church and the problems that happen in a local church. And it leads up to the culmination that we’ve had so far is in chapter 12, where it describes Paul uses a powerful metaphor and there a metaphor particularly applies to the church at Corinth, that local church. That’s what makes it resonate for me. Where the church is the local church is described as the Body of Christ. We’re used to the Ephesians metaphor where the whole church, the universal church is a picture of the Body of Christ. But in 1 Corinthians 12 he’s describing the local church or applying it to the local church as the Body of Christ. It’s where you serve. It’s where you belong. You are an integral part of it. You’re important to it. That’s teaching. That’s telling us who we are. That that’s explaining to us what our role is and in how we are to function and to please God.
And so, you know, that teaching is that when you do something for someone in the local church, you’re doing it for the Lord. It is His. You’re doing it for the Lord. I mean, that’s the passage in Matthew’s Gospel where he says, you know, you say,
“What did I do? What did I see you naked? Or when did I see you thirsty?”
He says,
“Inasmuch as you’ve done it to the least of these, my brothers, you’ve done it to me.”
That’s how that’s how that’s how intimate that passage is. We can learn from that. We can apply it. We can believe it. Or not. We can reject it.
One of the things that the Scripture does, it teaches. It also reproves. It’s it tells us when we’re headed in a wrong direction. I do some woodworking here and there. And when you get a board out, you want to know if the board is straight. You might use a square or a straight edge or something and you compare it to that and you can see if it’s misaligned in some way, if it’s crooked or misaligned. The Bible does that. We come to the Word of God, and the Word of God communicates truth that tells us what we’re like. It shows us a standard and then it shows us us.
And one of the passages that I like to look at on New Year’s Day is that passage in James 1 that compares the Word of God to a mirror. And he says, you know, you go and you look at the mirror in the morning and then you can go away and forget all about what you looked like. You know, you forget that your hair is, you know, sort of a mess and that your makeup is smudged or whatever. Or you can correct those things. You go to the Word of God and it tells you two things. It tells you what you should look like, and it tells you what you actually look like. And you can see that difference. It can it shows you the portrait of the Lord Jesus in a perfect way and that perfect standard, and then it shows you who you are. And what do you do? Well, you can reject it. You know, you can walk away from the mirror and forget. Or you can take the truth, the truth that we studied in 1 Corinthians 12. It teaches us that we are to be an active, loving part of the Body of Christ because it’s a vital organism, not just an organization. And you can say,
“No.”
You can say,
“I’m not accountable to anybody except me.”
Me and God, we’re good together. That’s all I need. And you can walk away from the Word of God. And you may be far more deceived than you think. It might not be you and God after all. Jesus said,
“My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.”
My sheep hear my voice, listens to the Word of God. You know, it doesn’t matter how deeply I study the Bible. I can I can study it in its original languages and and read commentaries and do all sorts of things with the Word of God. I can analyze it in all kinds of ways, but if I reject its message, I will never be blessed by it. Faith is the Word of God believed. Faith is displayed when God’s Word is obeyed. Faith is trusting God.
We think of faith and believing God, you know, we believe in that there is a God, and we believe in Jesus, that He died on the cross. We believe all sorts of things. But do you believe the Word of God? If you don’t believe the Word of God, you don’t believe God. Satan is a monotheist. He believes that there’s one God. He is a great theologian. He knows far more about God than most preachers. But he rejects all of it. So we can come so far, and if we go no further, we stay self-deceived. So God corrects us. He reproves us, and that’s a wonderful thing. The the Word of God is profitable for teaching, for reproof, and for correction.
In the workshop, when I look at that board and realize that it is not flat on one edge, I have a machine in my shop called a jointer. And it does one thing basically. Can do other things, but mostly it just does one thing. And that is, you run that board over it and it gives you one flat edge on the board. It straightens the board out. It corrects it. It makes the the board that was crooked, it cuts away the crooked parts and leaves a straight board. The Word of God does that. The Word can the Spirit of God applies the Word of God to our heart and it corrects us. It calls us to be made right when it’s received. You know, we have sinful hearts, and it’s so easy. Every one of us harbors sin in our heart and it’s hard to get rid of it. It’s hard to change a prideful thought. It’s hard to change a besetting sin that is within us.
Vicky’s got some good friends who own some rental property. And they rented their property out and this past year, their one of their tenants decided that he wasn’t interested in paying rent anymore, but he didn’t want to leave. And with some of the things that’s involved in the government, they were not weren’t able to to to get him to leave. They couldn’t evict him for the longest time. They finally went through a very lengthy process and now he’s out of the apartment out of the place. It’s a an interesting thing, you know, you’re you’re there, you have this problem, you are are it increasing this debt and and worry in your life and you can’t get rid of this one thing. It’s like sin. Sin gets into our life and we can’t do much about it. We are absolutely powerless in ourselves to do anything about it. But God didn’t leave us powerless. He gave us the power of His holy Word.
And the Word of God convicts. It corrects. It awakens us, it brings us awares to make us aware of the sin and it awakens us to guilt and the burden. And it it stirs us to repentance and to turn from it, and to turn towards Christ in something far better. And God removes and He sanctifies us through that. You say, I believe the Word of God, but if you never act on it or receive it in faith, then you’re not being obedient to the Word of God and you’re not receiving its blessing and power.
Conclusion: Trusting and Obeying God’s Word
God promises blessing to those who are corrected by His Word. I’m just going to read this, and we’ll close. The Lord do the words David. God promises blessing to those who are corrected by His Word. I’m just going to read some Scriptures here. Psalm 119:119.
“Blessed are those who keep His testimonies, who seek Him with their whole heart.”
Luke 11:28. The Lord Jesus, someone shouted,
“Blessed is the womb that bore you.”
Jesus said,
“Blessed rather are those who hear the Word of God and keep it.”
Blessed are those who hear the Word of God and keep it. Revelation 1:3.
“Blessed is the one who reads aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear and keep what is written in it.”
God blesses us. He trains us in righteousness. When we read the Word of God, we experience the glory of God and the wonder of the Gospel. We become what we see. We are all with unveiled face beholding the glory of the Lord and being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. That’s the power of the Word of God and the transforming grace of the Spirit of God when the Word is received in faith.
So let’s uh look to the Lord now for for blessing. Father, as we as we’ve studied this passage, we do pray, Father, that as we read your Word, in your Word, as we reflect on them and think about them, that you would renew our minds. Father, that we would have this mind in us, which was also in Christ Jesus. We pray that you work on our hearts to remove our mind, to prove the good, acceptable, and perfect will of God. Help us, Father, as we see our sinfulness, as we turn from it, as we trust the Word of God, as we allow it to correct our thinking so that we know, first of all, that the God that we’re worshiping is the God of revelation, and not the God of our own will imagination. We pray, Father, that as we trust your Word, that you would work to train us in righteousness, so that we can be useful, powerful. And Father, that as we do so, as we wait for your good will in our lives, in which we expect your grace and provision for us, that we would be faithful ourselves. That we would be trusting in you ourselves now. And we just ask, Father, for this strength.
As we come to the Lord’s table, Father, we pray your blessing on the bread and the cup. We ask, Father, that we receive this recognizing that it is a symbol of of something far greater, the ministry of Christ, His body broken for us. We pray that as we do this, that we would do it to your glory, to the glory of our Savior, the Lord Jesus. Stir our hearts to worship, we pray, in Christ’s name. Amen.