SPEAKER_00: Well, a couple of weeks ago, on a Sunday morning after this service, third service, I was in the Commons with my wife, and she was trying to talk to me, but I wasn't really listening.
SPEAKER_00: And I realized also, I figured out this morning, this is the second story I've told in like a month about not listening.
SPEAKER_00: So that's maybe a sign.
SPEAKER_00: But I wasn't listening.
SPEAKER_00: And here's the thing: she she was talking to me, but I was distracted by something.
SPEAKER_00: So maybe at best I was like half listening because I could tell she was trying to give me instructions.
SPEAKER_00: And I vaguely recollect that when she was doing that, she said something about a bag of chicken.
SPEAKER_00: That's all I remember.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: Wasn't really listening.
SPEAKER_00: So later on, she ends up leaving with the kids.
SPEAKER_00: I'm here packing up my stuff in my office downstairs.
SPEAKER_00: And I remember, oh, I think she was trying to give me instructions.
SPEAKER_00: So I better call her and find out what the situation is.
SPEAKER_00: So I call my wife.
SPEAKER_00: I said, Hey, what were you trying to explain to me in the comments, like about the chicken?
SPEAKER_00: And she's like, Oh, and she begins to talk.
SPEAKER_00: And I don't know if like somebody popped into my office or something, but she's explaining once again, I'm distracted and not listening a second time.
SPEAKER_00: Now, near the end of her explanation, I realize I'm not paying attention.
SPEAKER_00: I by this point, though, you know, she's already explained it two times.
SPEAKER_00: I don't want to ask her to explain the whole thing a third time.
SPEAKER_00: So I have a little tactic.
SPEAKER_00: I was like, oh, what was the end of that again?
SPEAKER_00: And so the last thing she said was, the freezer, right?
SPEAKER_00: At home, the freezer.
SPEAKER_00: And I was like, oh, got it.
SPEAKER_00: I didn't get it.
SPEAKER_00: Okay, I didn't get it.
SPEAKER_00: But I told her I did.
SPEAKER_00: But either way, no idea what she was talking about.
SPEAKER_00: All I know is there's instructions about a bag of chicken and a freezer at home.
SPEAKER_00: So I have a little bit of information.
SPEAKER_00: I gotta try to figure out what it is.
SPEAKER_00: I could have just called her.
SPEAKER_00: I should have just called her, but I'm too prideful by this point.
SPEAKER_00: So what I did was I was like, you know, it couldn't be that many scenarios.
SPEAKER_00: She probably means when I get home, take the bag of chicken out of the freezer so it can defrost and we're good.
SPEAKER_00: That's kind of what I assumed.
SPEAKER_00: So I get home, go to the house, open up the freezer, no bag of chicken.
SPEAKER_00: So finally I go to my wife a little hesitantly, and I was like, hey, there's no chicken in the freezer, which I don't know why I would have thought she could have just taken out of herself.
SPEAKER_00: But either way, I go to her, I'm like, there's no chicken in the freezer, and she's like, Yeah, I know.
SPEAKER_00: She said, The chicken is at the church.
SPEAKER_00: Someone dropped off a bag of chicken for us.
SPEAKER_00: It's in the freezer at church.
SPEAKER_00: I wanted you to bring that home and put it in our freezer at home.
SPEAKER_00: So I ended up driving home, grabbing the chicken, bringing, or driving here, grabbing the chicken, bringing it back here.
SPEAKER_00: Not a big deal.
SPEAKER_00: The point is, though, it was a simple task.
SPEAKER_00: I wasn't fully listening.
SPEAKER_00: I failed it completely.
SPEAKER_00: I wasn't fully listening.
SPEAKER_00: And my problem was I started to make assumptions.
SPEAKER_00: Instead of going back to the source and figuring out the truth, with the little information I had, I made assumptions, and those assumptions ultimately proved to be wrong.
SPEAKER_00: Well, the reason I'm sharing that with you is because we do that all the time.
SPEAKER_00: We have just a little bit of information and we make assumptions or we guess certain things.
SPEAKER_00: And oftentimes when we do that, the guesses or assumptions we make, they don't really carry much weight.
SPEAKER_00: Now, the truth is we don't just do that in life, we sometimes do that with God.
SPEAKER_00: The truth is, all the time there are people who maybe believe things about God that they've come up with their own ideas or their own assumptions.
SPEAKER_00: We assume things about who God is or what he's done.
SPEAKER_00: We speculate about what God is like.
SPEAKER_00: We do that all the time.
SPEAKER_00: People make assumptions and guesses about God all the time.
SPEAKER_00: We fill in the gaps with our own ideas and our own expectations and sometimes even with the changing culture of the world around us.
SPEAKER_00: And when that happens, yeah, that doesn't carry much weight.
SPEAKER_00: But I have good news for you this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Here's the good news God has spoken.
SPEAKER_00: He has.
SPEAKER_00: And the good news for us is we can see that truth directly in the pages of Scripture in the book of 2 Timothy.
SPEAKER_00: 2 Timothy 3, 16 through 17 explains that to us.
SPEAKER_00: And so if you want to see the fact that God has spoken and you want to understand that, you know, understanding God is not just guesswork, I want to invite you to open your Bibles with me to 2 Timothy chapter 3 this morning.
SPEAKER_00: 2 Timothy 3 is where we're at.
SPEAKER_00: Just a heads up, we open our Bibles every Sunday here.
SPEAKER_00: And so if you brought your Bible, great.
SPEAKER_00: If you didn't, we got you covered.
SPEAKER_00: We'll have the verses on the screen.
SPEAKER_00: We also have a Bible in front of you.
SPEAKER_00: You're welcome to use.
SPEAKER_00: If you don't own a Bible, take that Bible home.
SPEAKER_00: That's our gift to you.
SPEAKER_00: And if you're looking for 2 Timothy, it's in the New Testament, near the end of your Bible.
SPEAKER_00: So you get the Gospels, which is three-quarters of the way into your Bible.
SPEAKER_00: You get some of these smaller books, epistles.
SPEAKER_00: Then you end up getting to 1st and 2nd Thessalonians, which are epistles, and then 1st and 2nd Timothy.
SPEAKER_00: We're in 2 Timothy 3.
SPEAKER_00: If you hit uh Titus or Philemon or Hebrews, go backward.
SPEAKER_00: 2 Timothy 3 is where we're at.
SPEAKER_00: Also, it's a little toasty in here this morning, eh?
SPEAKER_00: What do you guys think?
SPEAKER_00: A little warm under these lights, too.
SPEAKER_00: Uh want to just throw out there, you know, a couple months ago we realized we were having a lot of people showing up on Sunday.
SPEAKER_00: We had capacity problems, so we just decided we're just not gonna use the AC all summer, and we'll see how our attendance turns out.
SPEAKER_00: I'm kidding.
SPEAKER_00: Our AC died this morning, unfortunately.
SPEAKER_00: I apologize for that.
SPEAKER_00: There's good news for you though.
SPEAKER_00: I was originally planning on preaching like a two-hour sermon, but now I'm just gonna go an hour 45 minutes.
SPEAKER_00: So we're good.
SPEAKER_00: So you guys just hang in there.
SPEAKER_00: So we are kicking off, uh actually continuing a series we kicked off three weeks ago.
SPEAKER_00: It's called Digging Deep.
SPEAKER_00: I'm excited to be here.
SPEAKER_00: Uh yeah, I'm Joe, the lead pastor, thankful to be able to share God's word.
SPEAKER_00: This series is fun because we take some of our favorite verses in the Bible and we dig deep into them and we unpack them.
SPEAKER_00: And the reason we've done this is because sometimes these verses that you know really well, these verses become familiar.
SPEAKER_00: And when some of those verses become really familiar, they also become a little bit common.
SPEAKER_00: And when those verses become common, then we tend to overlook them.
SPEAKER_00: And so our goal is to revisit some of your favorite verses and to look at them with a fresh perspective, fresh eyes, and to really dig deeply so we can mine from them all these amazing truths from God's Word.
SPEAKER_00: And so it's been a fun series so far.
SPEAKER_00: Today we're looking at a verse that for me in high school became very formative and important to me because there was a point in my life when I was in high school, around that time, where I started to question certain things about God.
SPEAKER_00: I began to question whether or not the Bible that I was taught to believe when I was young was actually truly the word of God.
SPEAKER_00: And so this verse became one of those passages that I was drawn to during that season.
SPEAKER_00: And just by way of you know short testimony, I should probably share with you, I was wrestling with things during that time, trying to answer certain questions.
SPEAKER_00: You know, again, I raised in the church.
SPEAKER_00: It was my parents' faith, but really it hadn't become fully my own faith.
SPEAKER_00: And so I started to question stuff.
SPEAKER_00: And the more I started digging, the more I started studying, the more I started searching, I became convinced that this was the word of God, that scripture was, and that Jesus did in fact rise from the dead.
SPEAKER_00: And so this verse was powerful for me.
SPEAKER_00: I learned this in the NIV version.
SPEAKER_00: It's the 1984 NIV version, just a heads up.
SPEAKER_00: That version of the Bible was re-u-translated in 2011.
SPEAKER_00: There's a new edition, and so it's really hard to find the 1984 version uh anywhere on the internet.
SPEAKER_00: It's been kind of taken from the internet, but that's how I remembered it.
SPEAKER_00: And so here's how the 84 version of this verse went.
SPEAKER_00: It says, All scripture is God breathed and useful for teaching and rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness so that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
SPEAKER_00: That's our verse.
SPEAKER_00: We'll look at it in the ESV.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, as we're jumping in, let me just take some time to give you context.
SPEAKER_00: And I know you're hot, so let me make this quick for you.
SPEAKER_00: I'll try to move into the book of 2 Timothy a really rapid pace for you this morning.
SPEAKER_00: The book of 2 Timothy is in the New Testament.
SPEAKER_00: So the New Testament has the story of Jesus, right?
SPEAKER_00: And after he died and rose from the dead and ascended into heaven, in the book of Acts, it says that the Holy Spirit empowered and indwelt the believers, and they became God's witnesses.
SPEAKER_00: And in Acts chapter 2, the church was born.
SPEAKER_00: So after Jesus ascended, the church is birthed, and pretty soon the good news of Jesus, this gospel starts spreading all around the city of Jerusalem.
SPEAKER_00: And lots and lots of people are embracing the gospel.
SPEAKER_00: The city is turned upside down, but many of the religious leaders at the time did not like this good news of Jesus, and they did not like the church that was growing rapidly in the city.
SPEAKER_00: And one particular person was a guy named Saul of Tarsus.
SPEAKER_00: Saul hated Christians, he hated the church, and he tried to do everything he could to stamp out the church, including persecuting Christians.
SPEAKER_00: But eventually, Saul had an encounter on the road to Damascus with the risen Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And in that moment, he was transformed forever, he became a Christian, and after his conversion, Saul became known as the Apostle Paul.
SPEAKER_00: He started traveling around the ancient world, planting churches.
SPEAKER_00: Well, and in Acts chapter 16, on his second missionary journey, he comes to Lystra and Derby and he encounters a young man named Timothy.
SPEAKER_00: Now, Timothy's mom was a Jew, his father was a Greek, and Timothy was somebody who had become a Christian, and he had a great reputation in the early church.
SPEAKER_00: And so Paul looks at him and he sees someone with potential and he invites him to come along with him.
SPEAKER_00: He takes him under his wing, and together Paul and Timothy start planting churches all around the Mediterranean.
SPEAKER_00: Again, that's Acts 16, where we see that start to happen.
SPEAKER_00: Now, Timothy was a young man who was like Paul's protege.
SPEAKER_00: And so after years and years of doing ministry together, like more than a decade, eventually it came to a point where Paul had established a church in the city of Ephesus, spent lots of time there, and he told Timothy that he was going to go to Ephesus and he was going to shepherd the flock there and pastor the church because in the city of Ephesus there were some problems.
SPEAKER_00: The church was struggling, false teachers were infiltrating the church, and so Paul was giving instructions to Timothy about how to deal with those false teachers.
SPEAKER_00: And so that's in the book of 1 Timothy.
SPEAKER_00: We learn all about that.
SPEAKER_00: Well, a couple years go by.
SPEAKER_00: Paul eventually lands himself in prison.
SPEAKER_00: If you read the end of Acts, he's in prison in Rome.
SPEAKER_00: This is later than that.
SPEAKER_00: That was a house arrest.
SPEAKER_00: Many years after that, Paul ends up in Rome again, but this time he's in Mamertine prison, and it's really the end of his life.
SPEAKER_00: Paul stays in that prison until the Romans take him and execute him.
SPEAKER_00: And so his very last letter that Paul wrote is the book of 2 Timothy.
SPEAKER_00: It's almost like Paul's last will and testament.
SPEAKER_00: He writes all these personal details to Timothy, but included in that, he writes instructions to Timothy, who's still in Ephesus, and he instructs him to hold fast and persevere in his faithful proclamation of the gospel of Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: That's the main theme of the book.
SPEAKER_00: Well, we're in chapter three, and in chapter three in particular, as he talks about Timothy holding fast and fighting the good fight, he begins to move into a section where he talks to Timothy about the importance of not abandoning the faith that began to develop when he was just a small child.
SPEAKER_00: And so we're going to pick up in verse 14 and we're going to see what Paul says to Timothy.
SPEAKER_00: He says, But as for you, continue in what you have learned, Timothy, and firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it, and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: Now I just want to look at this for a moment because these are the verses that immediately precede or go before our text.
SPEAKER_00: And here in this passage, Paul is reminding Timothy of his heritage.
SPEAKER_00: He's reminding him of something that happened when he was very young, just a child, how Timothy was acquainted with the scriptures from an early age.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you look at the beginning of 2 Timothy, Paul gives a little more details.
SPEAKER_00: He tells us that Timothy, when he was just a child, he was taught by his mother, Eunice, and his grandmother Lois the Scriptures.
SPEAKER_00: They began to teach him the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: And so that was a foundation for young Timothy.
SPEAKER_00: And it was something that they instilled in him when he was young.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if I can pause for a moment, we have a lot of parents in the room.
SPEAKER_00: We have a lot of grandparents.
SPEAKER_00: We have a lot of aunts and uncles.
SPEAKER_00: A lot of you have influence over little ones in your life.
SPEAKER_00: Now the truth is we live in a world where people always want to invest in young young people, children, right?
SPEAKER_00: We want to invest in them.
SPEAKER_00: And a lot of us do.
SPEAKER_00: There are many of you who, you know, you want to teach your kids to hunt and fish.
SPEAKER_00: You want to teach your kids how to swing a baseball bat or shoot a jump shot.
SPEAKER_00: Can I ask you this morning, how many of us truly want to teach our kids the scriptures?
SPEAKER_00: I want to challenge you with that this morning.
SPEAKER_00: Are we teaching our kids the word of God?
SPEAKER_00: Are we giving them a foundation that can last beyond this lifetime?
SPEAKER_00: Statistically, I saw something recently that said the big biggest indicator practically for kids who retain the faith of their youth is when they're when their parents teach them to memorize the scriptures.
SPEAKER_00: And I think it's because when you begin to develop and grow, if you have the scriptures hidden in your heart, well then you take it with you.
SPEAKER_00: And so when you go to college and your faith is challenged, you have verses at your disposal that you've hidden in your heart.
SPEAKER_00: And that's the greatest indicator that someone retains their faith is that they've memorized scripture from when they were young.
SPEAKER_00: And so I want to challenge you guys.
SPEAKER_00: We're going through the series, these are popular verses.
SPEAKER_00: Maybe take these verses and one by one teach your kids these verses.
SPEAKER_00: These are powerful verses, and it's important for us to invest in little ones for the sake of the kingdom.
SPEAKER_00: It's profoundly valuable.
SPEAKER_00: So here Paul is saying, Hey, since you were little, you learned these sacred writings.
SPEAKER_00: And so he's encouraging not to depart from them, right?
SPEAKER_00: Continue in what you have learned, remain there.
SPEAKER_00: And then after this, he's going to have our verse, and then in chapter four, he's going to say, then preach that word.
SPEAKER_00: And so what we're looking at here, the whole context is the scriptures.
SPEAKER_00: And what Paul is going to do now in verses 16 and 17, he's going to zoom in and he's going to say something to definitive, something definitive to Timothy about the scriptures, specifically three things about those sacred writings.
SPEAKER_00: He's going to talk about the nature of scripture, he's going to talk about the benefit of scripture, and he's going to talk about the impact of scripture.
SPEAKER_00: And so we're going to see that as we break down this text.
SPEAKER_00: So let's dive deep.
SPEAKER_00: Let's jump right in.
SPEAKER_00: The first thing Paul explains to Timothy, number one, is this Scripture is inspired by God.
SPEAKER_00: Now notice how the verse begins.
SPEAKER_00: It says this All scripture is breathed out by God.
SPEAKER_00: Now, the word scripture that's used here in this text, this is the Greek word graphe.
SPEAKER_00: Now, this is a word that just means piece of writing.
SPEAKER_00: This was written in ancient Greek.
SPEAKER_00: It's called Koine Greek at that time.
SPEAKER_00: In Koine Greek, graphae just meant a piece of writing.
SPEAKER_00: But in the Bible, uniquely, every time the word graphe is used, and it's used frequently, it's always referring to holy scripture, right?
SPEAKER_00: God's word.
SPEAKER_00: And so it's a generic word in Greek, but here in the New Testament, it's always in reference to the scriptures.
SPEAKER_00: Now, what's interesting here is Paul says all scripture.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I want to highlight something.
SPEAKER_00: This is important.
SPEAKER_00: What's interesting is at this point, right, we have the Old Testament, which was already established.
SPEAKER_00: So if you went to a synagogue, the Old Testament was already compiled, it was already established.
SPEAKER_00: The same Old Testament that Jesus read is the same Old Testament that you read.
SPEAKER_00: We just read it in English, and it's also arranged a little differently.
SPEAKER_00: All 39 books of the Old Testament were already embraced at that time.
SPEAKER_00: And so when Paul is talking about Timothy and those sacred writings, he's talking about the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: But Timothy was raised in the Old Testament.
SPEAKER_00: Now, what's interesting is at this point in history, this is the last book Paul wrote, by this point, there were now members of the church, the apostles who were beginning to write letters and gospel accounts.
SPEAKER_00: And so now these Christians were beginning to write these accounts.
SPEAKER_00: These were all people who were directly connected to the risen Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: And as they were writing, what's interesting is these letters that were written started circulating around.
SPEAKER_00: And so, for example, if you look at 1 Timothy 5.18, you don't have to turn there, but Paul is talking to Timothy in that chapter or in that verse, and he says, Timothy, this is what the scriptures say.
SPEAKER_00: And what Paul does is he references something from Deuteronomy, and then he references something from the Gospel of Luke.
SPEAKER_00: Now that may not be very significant to you or cool, but it's cool to me because what Paul is saying when he writes the letter of 2 Timothy is that Luke's letter, which was written not that long before, that that's scripture.
SPEAKER_00: Paul is identifying that some of these New Testament letters that are spreading around the Gospel accounts and the epistles, that that's scripture.
SPEAKER_00: Similarly, in the book of 1 or 2 Peter, 2 Peter 3.16, Peter talks about Paul's letters.
SPEAKER_00: He says they're kind of hard to understand, but he calls them scripture.
SPEAKER_00: Now, if you take Luke and you take Paul, that's more than half the New Testament, right there.
SPEAKER_00: My point here is this.
SPEAKER_00: Now, what's interesting here, this word breathed out by God, this is the word theoponustos in Greek.
SPEAKER_00: Now, this is the only time we find this word in the entire Bible.
SPEAKER_00: It's only used here.
SPEAKER_00: Paul employs this word that's like a kind of a mashing together of two different words to describe something.
SPEAKER_00: So Paul uses this word, the prefix theo, you might know theology.
SPEAKER_00: That's just the Greek word theos means God.
SPEAKER_00: So theo is God.
SPEAKER_00: Pneu, which is in the middle there, that's a Greek word for breath or being breathed out.
SPEAKER_00: And so the idea here is all scripture, quite literally, is God breathed.
SPEAKER_00: It's breathed out by God.
SPEAKER_00: Now, what Paul is describing for us is what's known as the doctrine of the inspiration of scripture.
SPEAKER_00: So as Christians, we do not believe that the Bible just came from people.
SPEAKER_00: It's not just a man-made book.
SPEAKER_00: We believe it's God's word.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Now, as a young person, this was significant for me.
SPEAKER_00: I shared some of the testimony.
SPEAKER_00: Let me just share a little bit more.
SPEAKER_00: When I was younger, I began to question things.
SPEAKER_00: I began to wonder if what my parents taught me was true.
SPEAKER_00: And so I really started to study.
SPEAKER_00: And when I was like 17, 18, I really started digging in.
SPEAKER_00: And I came to a point where I had this epiphany, this conclusion.
SPEAKER_00: It was one of two things.
SPEAKER_00: So if the Bible isn't really of God, right?
SPEAKER_00: If God didn't really write the Bible, I might as well live however I want.
SPEAKER_00: Because the truth is, why would I adhere to something that taught me or instructed me about what my life should be if it actually wasn't from God?
SPEAKER_00: That would be pointless.
SPEAKER_00: It has no authority.
SPEAKER_00: And so I came to a place that if this isn't true, I'm going to live however I please.
SPEAKER_00: But if there is a God and He truly has spoken, then my life must conform to whatever He's revealed.
SPEAKER_00: It must.
SPEAKER_00: To me, in my young 17, 18-year-old mind, it was very logical.
SPEAKER_00: Like if God has spoken, then I need to know what he says and I need to do what he says because he's God.
SPEAKER_00: And my life must conform to it.
SPEAKER_00: This is an authority over me.
SPEAKER_00: And so as I began to dig and study, this became so profoundly important to me to embrace the fact that what we are reading in the Bible is God's word.
SPEAKER_00: That was significant for me and my faith.
SPEAKER_00: I came to embrace that.
SPEAKER_00: And so scripture is what we call inspired.
SPEAKER_00: That's the technical word.
SPEAKER_00: Paul says it's breathed out by God.
SPEAKER_00: So the doctrine of inspiration means that God is the source of Scripture.
SPEAKER_00: The words that we read in the Bible, they come from God.
SPEAKER_00: They're God's word, but the means by which God delivered them to us is through human authors.
SPEAKER_00: Another way we can understand it is by looking at what Peter says about this.
SPEAKER_00: So in the book of 2 Peter, he says this, For no prophecy was ever produced by the will of man, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.
SPEAKER_00: You see, inspiration does not mean that God robotically made humans dictate everything he said.
SPEAKER_00: That's not how it works.
SPEAKER_00: It also doesn't mean that God said, Hey guys, here's a great idea for me.
SPEAKER_00: You just take it and run with it.
SPEAKER_00: That's also not what it means.
SPEAKER_00: What it means is God worked by the power of the Holy Spirit through real people, retaining their personalities and experiences and writing styles, so that the words that they wrote were the very words that God intended.
SPEAKER_00: So the words of Scripture, they came to us by means of human authors, but rest assured, God is the source of Scripture.
SPEAKER_00: The words that we read in the Bible are the very words of God.
SPEAKER_00: This is what Paul means when he says that all scripture is breathed out by God.
SPEAKER_00: God is the source.
SPEAKER_00: The Bible is from God.
SPEAKER_00: Amen?
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: So that's where we go, number one.
SPEAKER_00: And so Paul begins with Scripture is number one, inspired by God.
SPEAKER_00: It's breathed out by Him.
SPEAKER_00: The second thing we need to see now, it gets more practical.
SPEAKER_00: Scripture is instructive for the church.
SPEAKER_00: And notice what Paul says as he continues in this famous verse.
SPEAKER_00: He says, All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: Now, as Paul continues here, he's explaining that because Scripture is breathed out by God, it comes from him, that means it's authoritative.
SPEAKER_00: And it's not only authoritative, it's also valuable to us.
SPEAKER_00: The word Paul uses here is profitable.
SPEAKER_00: This is a word that simply means beneficial.
SPEAKER_00: So, how is the Bible beneficial to our lives?
SPEAKER_00: Well, what Paul does is he answers this by giving us a string of four different things.
SPEAKER_00: He says it's profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: Now, I studied these quite a bit this week, and uh one of the helpful commentaries I saw was from John Stott.
SPEAKER_00: John Stott says that these first two are kind of part of a pair, and the second two are really part of a pair.
SPEAKER_00: These first two have a lot to do with our beliefs.
SPEAKER_00: The second two have a lot to do with the way we live.
SPEAKER_00: Also, interestingly, in the first pair, one is a positive term, the other is a corrective term.
SPEAKER_00: In the second pair, one is also a positive, one is corrective.
SPEAKER_00: And so, what is Paul saying?
SPEAKER_00: What's the value of scripture?
SPEAKER_00: Well, let me break it down real quick.
SPEAKER_00: First of all, scripture is valuable for teaching.
SPEAKER_00: The idea there is it shows us what's true, it instructs us about the right things to believe, about God, ourselves, salvation, and the world around us.
SPEAKER_00: And so we are to teach Scripture.
SPEAKER_00: Secondly, it's profitable for reproof.
SPEAKER_00: This idea means that it exposes what's not true.
SPEAKER_00: It shows us what's false and what's error, and it confronts our thinking when we begin to drift away from the truth.
SPEAKER_00: The next thing we see is it's for correction.
SPEAKER_00: And so we just saw that reproof is all about what happens when we drift away from the truth.
SPEAKER_00: Correction is about bringing us back onto the right path.
SPEAKER_00: That's the idea.
SPEAKER_00: It doesn't just identify the problem.
SPEAKER_00: Scripture doesn't just do that.
SPEAKER_00: It helps us course correct so that we're going in the right direction.
SPEAKER_00: And fourthly, we see that scripture trains us for righteousness.
SPEAKER_00: So once we start going on that right direction, what it does is it teaches us how to continue in that and begin to produce a life that pleases God.
SPEAKER_00: And so through ongoing instruction and encouragement, discipline, it shapes us into the people that God desires for us to be.
SPEAKER_00: So the point here is this Scripture teaches us what's true and it teaches us what's not true.
SPEAKER_00: It shows us how to get on the right path and it shows us how to develop in that path.
SPEAKER_00: That's the idea.
SPEAKER_00: So to get real technical, which we've done in this series, scripture is valuable because it shows us orthodoxy, that's a big fancy word of saying right beliefs, and orthopraxy.
SPEAKER_00: That's a big fancy word word to say, right living.
SPEAKER_00: Scripture shows us with faith and practice exactly how we are to live.
SPEAKER_00: That's the point.
SPEAKER_00: Now, it's hot in here.
SPEAKER_00: I'm going fast if you can't tell.
SPEAKER_00: I'm trying to work with you here.
SPEAKER_00: Can I bring you back for a moment if I'm losing you?
SPEAKER_00: How many of you like Legos?
SPEAKER_00: I like Legos.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: Right now, on my dining room table, I have Legos all over there because my just turned seven-year-old daughter May is putting together a Lego set.
SPEAKER_00: It's kind of complex.
SPEAKER_00: It's not, um, there's a massive version of this, it's like the medium one.
SPEAKER_00: It's the Millennium Falcon.
SPEAKER_00: So if you if you don't know what the Millennium Falcon is, you need to re-prioritize your life, just so you know.
SPEAKER_00: Uh, it is the fastest ship in the galaxy, right?
SPEAKER_00: She's the one that made the Kessel run in less than 12 parsecs.
SPEAKER_00: All the nerds are with me.
SPEAKER_00: Amenning.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: So she's working on this Lego set, and at just turning seven, she's crushing it.
SPEAKER_00: She's doing a great job because she's following the instructions.
SPEAKER_00: It just tells her very clearly, piece by piece, where to go, and she can do the whole thing.
SPEAKER_00: If I took away the instructions, do you think that May could do the Lego set?
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: If I took away the instructions, do you think I could do the Lego set?
SPEAKER_00: No.
SPEAKER_00: It would be nearly impossible.
SPEAKER_00: The point here is the same.
SPEAKER_00: God's word is clear.
SPEAKER_00: He's not left us in the dark.
SPEAKER_00: He's given us clear instructions.
SPEAKER_00: Scripture is meant to be instructional for the church.
SPEAKER_00: That's the point.
SPEAKER_00: So now that we've seen, number one, that scripture is inspired by God, right?
SPEAKER_00: It's breathed out by him.
SPEAKER_00: Number two, it's instructional for the church.
SPEAKER_00: It teaches us not only what to believe, but also how to live.
SPEAKER_00: Third and finally, we're going to see Scripture is intended to mature us.
SPEAKER_00: It's intended for our maturity.
SPEAKER_00: That's the idea.
SPEAKER_00: So as Paul wraps up this verse, he says this now.
SPEAKER_00: All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for approof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.
SPEAKER_00: Now, as we begin to unpack this last section, I want to just pause and look at the word that.
SPEAKER_00: So the point here is scripture comes from God.
SPEAKER_00: It's been breathed out by him.
SPEAKER_00: It's valuable for the church.
SPEAKER_00: It teaches us what to believe and how to live.
SPEAKER_00: And if we begin to allow that to shape us and grow us more and more, and we allow scripture to do its work in our lives through the power of the Spirit, ultimately the result of that will be maturity.
SPEAKER_00: That's the point.
SPEAKER_00: Paul says that the man of God may be complete.
SPEAKER_00: Now, Paul is not being sexist here.
SPEAKER_00: This is for men and women, but remember, he's speaking specifically to Timothy when he's saying this.
SPEAKER_00: The idea is if Timothy allows Scripture to shape him and grow him, Timothy will be a man of God complete.
SPEAKER_00: And the same thing is true for all of us.
SPEAKER_00: If we allow scripture to do its work, we will be people of God.
SPEAKER_00: Complete, mature.
SPEAKER_00: In fact, he goes on to even say this that we'll be equipped for every good work.
SPEAKER_00: This talks about now the sufficiency of Scripture.
SPEAKER_00: I want you to know that everything that God gives for you in life, for how you are to live, he has given you sufficient information about that in his word.
SPEAKER_00: It's everything that we need.
SPEAKER_00: It equips us with all that we need to do God's work.
SPEAKER_00: That's all about the sufficiency of Scripture, right?
SPEAKER_00: Everything we need for faith and practice, it comes from God.
SPEAKER_00: He's given us what we need.
SPEAKER_00: I've been moving real quick.
SPEAKER_00: Believe it or not, I'm nearing the tail end.
SPEAKER_00: Okay.
SPEAKER_00: So let's just kind of begin to wrap things up.
SPEAKER_00: We have a God who's spoken.
SPEAKER_00: He has breathed out his word.
SPEAKER_00: And I didn't even press into this, but if I can just say real quick, you notice in the beginning of the Bible, when God creates Adam and He breathes into him the breath of life, and Adam is animated and he becomes a living being.
SPEAKER_00: Scripture is also breathed out by God in the sense that it's living, it is powerful, it is active, it is sharper than any two-edged sword.
SPEAKER_00: God has breathed it out.
SPEAKER_00: Not only does that mean it's a source of all information, but it's alive.
SPEAKER_00: And we have the opportunity right in front in front of us to engage with God's word.
SPEAKER_00: So scripture is breathed out.
SPEAKER_00: It's authoritative, that means.
SPEAKER_00: It's also instructive and it's sufficient.
SPEAKER_00: It's all that we need for faith and practice.
SPEAKER_00: So if God has given us this treasure, this gift, let me ask you, are we listening?
SPEAKER_00: Are we listening to what God has spoken, to what he said?
SPEAKER_00: I opened this message by talking about a recent situation where my wife was talking and I wasn't fully listening.
SPEAKER_00: And as a result, I had a whole lot of speculation and guessing about what she wanted, and I drew some conclusions that weren't the best.
SPEAKER_00: Now that's not the end of the world because it was just a bag of chicken.
SPEAKER_00: But the truth is, when it comes to understanding the deeper truths and mysteries of who God is and what he's done and what he desires for our lives, we can't just speculate on those things.
SPEAKER_00: We can't.
SPEAKER_00: Or, oh, no, my God doesn't work that way.
SPEAKER_00: I hear people say that all the time.
SPEAKER_00: Can I pose some questions to challenge that this morning?
SPEAKER_00: On what basis are people making those claims about God?
SPEAKER_00: By what authority are people saying those things?
SPEAKER_00: What is the source that's guiding people who make those conclusions?
SPEAKER_00: Listen, beloved, please.
SPEAKER_00: If you are making claims about who God is and what God's like based on your own perspectives or cultural trends that are constantly changing, values that are changing, or based on what you deem is right in your eyes, I hate to burst your bubble, but your God doesn't exist.
SPEAKER_00: He is a figment of your imagination.
SPEAKER_00: You have just fashioned an idol in your own mind of who you want your own God to be.
SPEAKER_00: And if that's you today, I want to challenge you and call you out and tell you to repent.
SPEAKER_00: You don't get to dictate who your God is or what your God does.
SPEAKER_00: If that's the case, your God doesn't exist.
SPEAKER_00: There is a God, and He has spoken.
SPEAKER_00: He has spoken through His word.
SPEAKER_00: Are we listening?
SPEAKER_00: You see, the big idea this morning that we need to understand very clearly from this passage is this God doesn't leave us guessing.
SPEAKER_00: God doesn't leave us in the dark.
SPEAKER_00: No, he's spoken.
SPEAKER_00: Scripture is inspired.
SPEAKER_00: It's breathed out by God.
SPEAKER_00: He's breathed it out.
SPEAKER_00: That means it's authoritative, it's instructive, and it's sufficient.
SPEAKER_00: So you don't have to guess who God is or what God is like or what he wants for your life.
SPEAKER_00: You can know.
SPEAKER_00: You can go straight to the source and understand and know the words of Scripture, the words that are in your Bible, are the very words of God.
SPEAKER_00: That's incredible.
SPEAKER_00: They've been written for our sake.
SPEAKER_00: Don't neglect them, don't avoid them, don't ignore them.
SPEAKER_00: Turn to the source of truth.
SPEAKER_00: Embrace that truth.
SPEAKER_00: It's this truth that brings about salvation.
SPEAKER_00: Isn't that what Paul told Timothy?
SPEAKER_00: It makes him wise for salvation through faith in Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: You see, the scriptures reveal to us Christ.
SPEAKER_00: God gave Jesus to this world because he loved us so much.
SPEAKER_00: He died on the cross to pay the penalty for our sin and he rose for our salvation.
SPEAKER_00: And by grace and through faith in Jesus, we can experience salvation.
SPEAKER_00: That is a gift to us.
SPEAKER_00: It's able to make us wise for salvation through faith in Jesus.
SPEAKER_00: So don't neglect the scriptures.
SPEAKER_00: Stop trying to guess or speculate or make assumptions about all these big questions in life.
SPEAKER_00: God doesn't leave us guessing.
SPEAKER_00: No, He has spoken.
SPEAKER_00: So go to the source.
SPEAKER_00: Go to the Word of God.
SPEAKER_00: This word that's been breathed out.
SPEAKER_00: Go to the Word of God and submit to it now and through the power of the Spirit, allow it to do its work in your life, to change you and shape you and mold you and grow you and mature you into the person that God intended you to be for your own good and for the glory of God.
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, thank you for your word.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you for today.
SPEAKER_00: It is hot in the room.
SPEAKER_00: But Lord, that doesn't matter.
SPEAKER_00: Ultimately, you are on the throne, and you are the God who, even in our discomfort, I pray, would shake us and challenge us today to stop relying on our own perspective of what we think you are, what the world tells us you should be.
SPEAKER_00: Lord, let's allow you to dictate that through your word.
SPEAKER_00: Let's turn to you and find this ultimate source of truth and submit ourselves to it.
SPEAKER_00: We don't get to determine who you are or what you do.
SPEAKER_00: You do.
SPEAKER_00: So may we go to you and humbly bow before you, repent of any moments that we tried to fashion an idol in our mind of who you are, and embrace you for who you are.
SPEAKER_00: From what you've said.
SPEAKER_00: May we be people of the book.
SPEAKER_00: People who live out and embrace the word of God.
SPEAKER_00: You said, heaven and earth may pass away.
SPEAKER_00: My words will by no means pass away.
SPEAKER_00: May we take that at face value.
SPEAKER_00: May we embrace these holy scriptures that have been breathed out that are useful for us.
SPEAKER_00: So, Lord, we ask all these things again for your glory and for the good of your people, your church.
SPEAKER_00: In Jesus' name.
SPEAKER_00: Amen.