Continuing in the Word

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Yesterday, I was at a kid’s birthday party and ran into a guy that I grew up with in the youth group years ago. He was a few years behind me, but we knew each other from that. And then our family’s intermarried, and so we see each other a couple times a year.

And he is in seminary at the moment, working on a master’s degree. And so we started talking about that because I’m finishing up my doctorate. And so we discussed the challenges of trying to do all of that and work and have a big family.

And he told me at one point, though, he said, you don’t understand. He said, I am in the minority in my class. I said, what does that mean?

And we’re at different schools, but he is in what we think of as a conservative evangelical seminary. He said, I am in the minority in my missions class in believing that Jesus is the only way to salvation. and I said what you know making sure I heard him right because he’s not at some off-the-wall school I’m not going to tell you the name of it because it may not be representative of the whole school but in his class he said yeah most of the people they have to do these online discussions and and and things he even pulled some of it up on his phone to show me he said yeah most of the people in my class think that God will make other ways for people who’ve who’ve never heard and I said and And what scripture are they basing that off of?

He said, that’s the question. And he showed me one conversation in particular. He said, now this one guy, he said, yeah, I think there are going to be other ways.

And somebody fortunately called him on it and said, can you show me any verse that says that? And the man’s response was, well, I can’t really show you a verse that says that, but that’s what I hope is the case. He said he hoped that was the case.

And listen, by the way, it would be so nice to be able to tell the world, yeah, you can get in any way you want to, but we don’t have the luxury of going against what Scripture clearly says. And so this man was saying, well, I hope this is the case, even though I can’t show you a Scripture to back it up. And over the last several weeks, we’ve been discussing as a church some ways where the culture has redefined words and concepts that don’t mean what they used to mean.

And how we need to go back to a biblical understanding of the way we used to understand some of these words. And one of the things that I’ve realized that has been redefined and reinterpreted and re-understood is the Bible itself. You see, there was a time where even in the church, we were all pretty well in agreement that the Bible was God’s Word, that it was authoritative, that it was inspired, that it was all the things it claims to be.

And by the way, sometimes people will throw out the straw man about our beliefs and say, oh, the Bible’s true because the Bible says it’s true. Yeah, that makes sense. You know what?

I would sneer too if that were the case, if that were the basis for our beliefs. But there’s more to it than just the Bible says it’s true, so it’s true. There are reasons to believe that the Bible is true, which we may get into a little bit in a little while.

But it used to be even in the church, we were on the same page about that. That’s not necessarily the case anymore. As the world has drifted away from the idea of the authority, as the culture has drifted away from the idea of the inspiration and authority of God’s Word, in many cases the church has drifted with it.

And this redefinition of the Scripture is contributing to a generational decline in Christianity. You know, we’ve known for years and years that we’re losing kids after high school. And this is not just about church attendance.

I believe church attendance is important or I wouldn’t be here. but more so it’s a matter of them walking away from the faith. And we’ve known for years and years, the studies and the research have shown that kids are walking away from the faith after high school.

But I was sent a stack of 26 pages of research this week that I just kind of read through as best I could until my eyes started to glaze over. They were talking about the fact that really we’re losing kids in upper elementary school and middle school. That many times kids are in church and maybe even in Christian school but they’re checking out long before they graduate as far as their beliefs and their firm conviction of God’s Word and the truth of the Gospel.

And we know that the way Scripture is being viewed and presented has a lot to do with that because when these researchers from various places, I could send you the email if you want to see it, but the Barna Group and Lifeway and Ligonier Ministries and different researchers, when they’ve asked some of these kids that have walked away from the faith, They’ve said, what was the reason for it? Some of the most common answers that they gave were that they didn’t see the Bible as a source of relevant answers to their questions and that they didn’t see it treated as a priority at home.

So it becomes clear pretty quickly that the way we treat the Scriptures, the way we present the Scriptures to our kids has an impact on how they relate to the Scriptures later on and how they relate to the Gospel and to the truth of Christianity in general. And by the way, I’m not just throwing this about training your kids because you all are here. We’ve been going through this series since mid-January. But what we do and the way we treat the Scriptures has an impact on the generation that follows us.

And the Apostle Paul showed us how the situation can be addressed. We’re going to be in 2 Timothy this morning. 2 Timothy chapter 3.

If you have your Bible, if you turn there with me, if you’re using a device to read the Scriptures, If you have access to our bulletin, there’s a link right there that will get you to it. It’ll also be on the screen for you here. But we’re going to read from 2 Timothy 3.

And if you’re able to without too much difficulty, if you’d stand with me as we read together from God’s Word. 2 Timothy 3, starting in verse 12, and we’re going to go to verse 17. Paul says, Yes, and all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.

But evil men and imposters will grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived. But you must continue in the things which you have learned and been assured of, knowing from whom you have learned them, and that from childhood you have known the holy scriptures which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus. All scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.

And you may be seated. So where Scripture has been reinterpreted and redefined to be just a human book or a book of suggestions, the picture we get from the apostles is that this was God’s actual Word. And I do want to address this idea that we believe the Bible is true because the Bible says so.

That’s not enough, because I could write a book and tell you in it that it’s the Word of God. That doesn’t make it so. And if the world looks at it and says, well, that’s your reason for believing the Bible, and there are people who think that’s our reason for believing the Bible, it’s natural that they would kind of scoff at that.

When Paul wrote that all Scripture is given by inspiration of God, I don’t think he had his writing in mind. Paul was talking about what they already had in their hands that were the Scriptures. He was talking about the Old Testament.

And by the way, there’s good historical reason to believe that Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John were written by the apostles or their close associates, and they, those who were eyewitnesses of Jesus’ ministry, saw Jesus, heard His teaching, And they record that he quoted from every collection of Old Testament work as though it was authoritative in the Word of God. So we have good historical reason to believe that Jesus Christ taught, just as the apostles did, that the Old Testament is the Word of God. And then we come to the writings of the New Testament.

The apostle Paul quotes from the book of Luke in one of his letters and says, it’s Scripture. We have where Peter affirms that Paul’s writings were Scripture. We see where the early church looked at these letters, and they went through and they saw.

. . By the way, there were more works and writings and letters circulating than what we just have in our Bible now.

But they were able to compare these, and they were able to tell these are consistent with what God’s already revealed in the Old Testament. These are consistent with what the apostles taught. There’s reason to believe that these are God’s Word.

And there was no group, as some modern movies and novels would tell us, who got together and debated and decided what was in Scripture and what wasn’t. As churches had access to the different books in the first couple of centuries after the fact, they would read these and they would say, these are clearly Scripture. We have reason to believe these are clearly Scripture.

We have reason to believe these are not. And by the time somebody finally got down to deciding it and making it official, it was pretty much a done deal. They rubber-stamped what everybody already knew to be true. So are the Scriptures true because they tell us they’re true?

Scripture in the New Testament confirms the truth of the Old Testament scriptures. And the church virtually unanimously recognized early on which writings from the apostles were genuine and were inspired. And we defer to their expertise, the people who were closest to Jesus Christ writing and the people who were closest to them recognizing that what they wrote was divinely inspired.

So there’s reason to believe the scriptures and not just because Paul said, oh, by the way, my writings are the word of God. There’s more to it than that. But Paul here is talking about the worth of Scripture.

He’s talking about the authority of Scripture. And he makes it clear at the beginning of this passage that the world is not going to make it easy to follow Jesus Christ. That’s why he’s writing this to Timothy. A lot of times we’ll teach the end part of this, about the authority of Scripture, and leave off the beginning of that, where Paul, even before where we started in verse 12, Paul is talking about all the things that he has had to suffer for the sake of the Gospel.

And then he moves in verse 12 to telling Timothy, And by the way, you’re going to suffer too. Anybody who tries to live for Jesus Christ is going to suffer persecution, is going to suffer trouble. We’ve talked about that a little bit in the last few weeks.

That doesn’t mean that all persecution looks the same. Sometimes when they change the design of the coffee cups at Christmas time or somebody doesn’t tell us Merry Christmas, we get all upset and say we’re being persecuted. Not quite.

Not quite. Certainly not on the scale of what people are suffering in some of the countries I mentioned a few weeks ago. North Korea, Eritrea, Turkmenistan.

There are places all over the world where people are giving up their freedoms and their very lives for the sake of the gospel. All persecution does not look the same, but we will all suffer some degree of persecution and difficulty if we’re trying to live for Jesus Christ. And Paul told Timothy about this. He warned about the persecution and trouble.

And so that Timothy did not think that it was unique to him, he says it’s something we can all expect. Because we have the tendency of saying, God, why am I going through this trouble? If I’m doing everything you want me to do, I shouldn’t be having to go through this.

And the Bible makes it clear it’s just sort of baked into the cake for us as Christians. He says, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus, in verse 12, will suffer persecution. And he also warned Timothy, just to make sure everybody’s sufficiently down in the dumps today, he warns that it’s only going to get worse.

Cheer up. It can always be worse. And then he says it’s going to be.

He says in verse 13, but evil men and imposters will grow worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived. And when you get to that word imposter, in the Greek it’s a word that they would use for a wizard or a sorcerer. Somebody who’s trying to craft spells and place spells over people to blind them and confuse them and make them do what they want to do.

And he said there were going to be teachers who were going to come along and try to entrap you in false teaching. so you not only have persecution from the outside but you’ve got trouble with from within and he says it’s going to be tough to be a follower of jesus christ I’ve told some of you before that at a testimony testimony meeting one time I heard somebody say they told their story and said and I came to christ and I’ve been happy ever since and then a few other people got up and said the exact same thing and I thought why didn’t I get the package they signed up for that is not how it works. And I think for a while we were telling people in evangelism, you come to Christ and all your problems will be dealt with.

That is not true. As a matter of fact, that was the start of a lot of my problems. I wouldn’t trade Christ for any of it, but it starts a lot of problems. It’s going to be difficult. And if we go into this thinking that if I come to Christ, everything’s going to be perfect after that, we are going to be sorely disappointed and is liable to shipwreck our faith.

And so he warned, it’s going to be difficult. You’re going to have trouble. Now, what does this have to do with the Scriptures?

The Scriptures are the answer to this. Because he tells him, if we skip ahead to verse 16, all Scripture is given by inspiration of God. And he said it is profitable, it’s useful, it’s beneficial for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.

The idea of doctrine is sound teaching for knowing the truth. Reproof is for correcting us when we step out of line. Anybody else ever step out of line or is it just me?

Okay, I need the reproof of God’s word. I like it when God’s word steps on my toes. I don’t always like it in the moment.

Let me be clear. But on the whole, I like it to be corrected and do things God’s way. For correction.

So God’s word doesn’t just point out and say, here’s where you’re wrong. I hate that when people, you listen sometimes to people on the news and they’re so smart about diagnosing the problems in our country, but they never offer any good solutions. That’s not helpful.

God’s Word doesn’t do that with us. It doesn’t just say, here’s all the ways you’re wrong. It says, here’s how it’s fixed.

And for instruction in righteousness, tells us how to get back on the right track and carry on. And Paul tells us the Scriptures are a gift from God. He says they were given to us by God.

Folks, the Scriptures are here to tell us how we can live for Jesus. In the midst of that troublesome, trying world full of persecution and deception, the Scriptures are there so that we can know how to live for Jesus. but you have to defer to the authority of God’s Word in order to do that.

See, it does me no good if I just look at this as a book of suggestions, because then I pick and choose what I want to do. I pick and choose what I want to believe and what I want to follow, and I’m not getting the full benefit of the instruction He gives me. They were given as a gift from God.

They’re there for our good. He says it’s given by inspiration of God, and it’s profitable. It’s good for us.

Folks, if you were raised to believe that the Bible is a book of do’s and don’ts, it’s just a book of rules that are there to oppress you, let me tell you, you were taught wrong. You were taught wrong. The Bible is there to help us understand the truth about who God is and what He wants from us so that we can know and experience the joy of following Him.

This book, properly understood, is liberating to us. It was given for our good. It gives us the information we need, verse 16 says, and it equips us to follow Jesus and serve Him.

And it says, the Scripture was given to us for all these purposes. And then verse 17 says, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work. God uses those Scriptures to prepare us to do the things that He’s called us to do.

We don’t have to build ministry from the ground up. We don’t have to figure everything out from the ground up. He’s given us the instruction manual. Now, sometimes I wish it was a little more detailed.

I remember hearing growing up, the Bible has the answers to all your problems. And I thought, it hasn’t helped me in algebra 2 yet. It doesn’t have the answers to that. I need the test answers here.

But the real problems, the real issues of life, the Bible speaks to them. It speaks to them directly or indirectly. There’s a principle in there that addresses everything.

We’ve been, on Wednesday nights, you all have heard this, on Wednesday nights I’ve been doing something with our church called Stump the Preacher where I give them the opportunity to submit questions ahead of time. Anonymously if they want to, They can submit them online. And then I research them, and I take a Wednesday night and try to answer those questions.

It’s been hard. I’ve done this before at other churches. They’ve come up with some hard questions because I have to dig.

The Bible didn’t write about COVID. It may surprise you to know that caught us all off guard. Nobody was writing about COVID 2,000 years ago.

And yet there are principles in there that if we look for them, can tell us how to navigate this whole situation. The Bible provides answers even to that. So does the Bible mention it in black and white?

No, but there are principles in there that we can take and apply as we try to navigate the absolute insanity of the world around us. The Bible has answers, but this has equipped us. If we will use it, if we will recognize it as God’s Word for us, then it’s there to equip us so that we can follow Jesus Christ and serve Him faithfully and do it well.

But the Scriptures accomplish their good work in our lives because they’re God’s work. I read a lot of books that have good advice in them, but they’re not God’s Word. And I can’t view them as God’s Word.

I’ve got a lot of Christian books on my shelf in my office. And I kind of have to pick through them and, okay, this is a good thought. This doesn’t apply to me.

No, that’s wrong. And I can pick out useful tidbits, but none of it has changed my life like the things that I read in Scripture. Because I recognize them as God’s Word.

If you just recognize this as helpful suggestions, it’s not going to do that much to help you. But if you recognize it as God’s Word, if you recognize it as the instructions He’s given you so that you can please Him, so that you can glorify Him, it’ll change your life. The Scriptures tell us how to live for Jesus, but we have to recognize God’s authority.

We have to recognize the authority of God’s Word and we have to defer to that authority in order to get that benefit. And then this morning, I want us to understand that we must ensure that future generations know how to turn to God and His Word for its truth. As older believers, we have to model for them how that works.

Now, I know some of you are sitting there and saying, my child raising days are past. You may still have influence with your child. If not, some of you are raising grandchildren, or some of you are taking care of grandchildren a lot. Some of you spend time with neighbor kids.

Some of you are just an influence on the kids around here. I don’t know if you realize this, but my children love you all, and they watch you. I didn’t mean that to sound as ominous as it did.

And they report back everything you’re doing. No, they don’t. But they love you all.

They watch you all. You have influence you don’t even realize. And Paul said in verses 14 and 15, you must continue in the things.

He’s speaking to Timothy here. You must continue in the things you have learned and been assured of. And here’s what he says.

Knowing from whom you have learned them and that from childhood, you have known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith, which is in Christ Jesus. He said, You’ve known the truth of what the Scriptures say from the time you were a child. We know from elsewhere in Paul’s writings to Timothy that Timothy had a Christian mother and grandmother who taught him the Scriptures, who taught him the faith.

And Paul said, go back to that. Go back to what they taught you, not because they taught you, but because it’s right. Because you know it’s right.

Just because I teach my children something doesn’t make it right. I’m sure I’ve made mistakes. I’m sure I’ve told them things that were not true.

Not deliberately, but I don’t know everything. You all have learned that over the last couple of years. I don’t know everything.

Just because I teach them something doesn’t make it right. But in this case, Paul said, what you’ve learned, what you’ve heard, what you’ve taken in over the years, what you’ve studied is right. When you get into the insanity of the world, go back and lean on the scriptures you’ve been taught.

And that reminds me that we have an incredible responsibility to ensure that our kids not only know that the truth is found in this book, that this book is truth, but that they also know how to find it. That can be hard to do. I understand the challenges of parenting.

I know you probably think, well, you’re the pastor. Of course, y’all are talking the Bible at your house all the time. Let me tell you, I work all day up here doing what I need to do up here, and I go home, and I never know what I’m going to walk into.

That’s not a bad thing. We have five kids. There’s always something going on.

And usually I help Charla deal with whatever chaos is there when I walk in. And she and or I get dinner ready by about 5 o’clock. Sit down to eat.

By the time we get everybody fed because we’re just sitting down to eat and the middle kids want seconds, the little kids are throwing a fit because they don’t want to eat that. By the time we get to eat, it’s usually 6 o’clock. By the time we get done, we have bath time.

or I have to help Benjamin with whatever he’s doing in school. And there’s just always stuff to do. We get the kids ready for bed, and our kids go to bed at 7.

30. I know that sounds so early to people, especially for our older kids, but they’re going to wake up at the crack of dawn either way, and they need their sleep. So they go to bed at 7.

30. We try to have conversations about God’s Word. We try to deal with their questions.

But don’t think I’m walking into some fairytale land where everything’s wonderful and we just sit around playing the guitar and singing about Jesus all day long. We live in a real world, and sometimes it’s hard to squeeze those things in. But I’m telling you, it’s worth it.

It’s worth it. When our kids get out into the crazy that is this world, it’s worth it for them to be equipped with the answers. We have young people here at our church.

We have young people here. The Bible has answers for you. Talk to your parents.

Talk to your teachers. Talk to your Sunday school teachers. And some of you just went, oh, no, don’t say me.

Listen, it’s okay to tell the kids you don’t know the answer, but you’ll help them find it. And if nothing else, come to me. I don’t know everything, but I’ll help you help them find it.

All right? I’ll make that deal to the church and to you all if you need it. But it is so vitally important that they know not only that God’s truth is in there, that God’s truth permeates every page of this book, but also how to find it.

And I want to brag on somebody just because you probably don’t know this is going on and it’s going to make him very uncomfortable, and I’m sorry, but it needs to be said. I love what is taking place in the Bible studies that our youth are doing on Sunday mornings. Huey and Monique work with those kids, and I’ve sat in on his class a few times.

You all probably noticed I rotate through the Sunday school classes, not because I’m checking up on the teachers, but just I want to get to know everybody. I’ve sat in on that class a few times, and I walk out of there every time thinking, that is exactly what they should be doing. Man, I’m glad somebody gets it, Because every time I’ve been in there, Huey will take them through, and Monique as well, but they’ll throw out a question that the kids are dealing with or that they will deal with in the world.

And they will send them to their Bibles either to look up verses in support of one position or another, or they’ll give them a list of verses. They read them and they discuss them and they go back and forth about is this the answer, is this the answer? And they are teaching and they are training these kids not only to go to God’s Word for the answers, but how you find them.

And I love it. And I’m getting goosebumps just talking about it. And you and Monique, you need to know that I appreciate that you’re doing that.

It’s incredible. I’m so thankful. Our kids need to know God’s Word has answers.

It has answers for the problems you navigate in life. It has answers. And by the way, that’s not just true for our young people.

It’s true for us as well. It has answers for our relationships. It has answers for our finances.

It has answers for how we navigate as citizens in this world. It has answers for our moral questions. The answers are there.

We just need to recognize it and go find them and then accept them as the answer when we do. So for a believer, this tells us that we need to continue in God’s Word and we need to help the next generation continue in God’s Word. And by the way, the next generation can be a young Christian even if they’re in their 60s or 70s.

For a believer, that means we’re studying God’s Word. it means we’re going back to it constantly as our roadmap. That we’re not having to try to navigate these and navigate all these questions on our own and hope this is the answer, as that man did in the story I told at the beginning.

But to go back to this as the roadmap. Especially for an older believer, it means that you demonstrate by the way you live your life that the Scriptures are relevant, that they have value, that they speak with authority to the questions of life. It doesn’t mean that anybody expects you to be perfect, but it means that you’re doing your best to live like this is God’s Word and that it means what it says.

And we demonstrate that in front of the younger Christians. We give them the foundation they need so that they can do the same thing, so that they have that foundation to stand on. And there’s a role for all of us, whether you’re a parent, whether you’re a grandparent, a teacher, somebody in the church without kids, there’s a role for each of us.

We need to emphasize that God’s Word gives us everything we need to know. Not everything we want to know, but everything, man, is that true. But gives us everything we need to know in order to be saved and in order to live a life that pleases Him.

He said the Scriptures made Timothy wise unto salvation. And the Bible teaches about salvation that there is one way and only one way. And the world thinks it’s harsh or narrow-minded to say there’s only one way, but it’s one way more than what we deserve.

See, our sin and rebellion separated us from God. And God could have left us on our own to deal with that sin ourselves, to pay for it ourselves. and to fail miserably at paying for it ourselves.

He could have done that, but God, in spite of our sin, loved us enough that He sent Jesus Christ to take responsibility for our sins, for every bit of it, and to be nailed to the cross and shed His blood and die in our place. And then He rose again three days later to prove it. He did that so that we could be forgiven.

There’s no religious ritual we can do that will save us. Going to church does not save us. Giving money, trying to be a good person, it does not save us.

only recognizing what the Bible says, that Jesus Christ died in our place, that’s the only way we can be forgiven. We won’t get that message anywhere else, from any other religion, from any other text. That’s what the Bible tells us, and that’s what we need to know.