Our Only Foundation— God's Word: 2 Timothy 3:10-17

Fifth Sunday of the month, which means there's no children's church downstairs.

Children, you're welcome to stay with us, or parents, if you find that you need to find another space, you can certainly listen to the lobby or the simulcast room.

But at this point, I'd like to invite the children to come up with me.

Would you come forward, children?

Just have a seat on that the steps of that stage.

Welcome.

It's good to see you.

It's good to see you in church.

I have a question for you today.

Do you eat every day?

Every day?

How many times a day?

Three?

Two?

One?

Once a day.

Do we have to talk to somebody about that?

So um, what'd you have for breakfast today?

We had a little toast salad and eat.

Oh, nice.

You had McDonald's?

That's not like a dessert.

That's what I had a lot of.

You had a dessert for breakfast.

Good for you.

I had nothing.

Oh.

I have McDonald's.

Okay.

I had a good baby.

Okay.

Well, listen, you know what?

Just like it's important to eat food every day because otherwise you're not going to have strength.

You're not going to have the energy.

You're not going to be able to really function like you need to function.

Do the things that you need to do if you're not eating.

Well, kind of like a robot who's not charged.

That's probably right.

But you know what Pastor Tom's going to talk about this morning in the sermon?

A different kind of food.

Not physical food that you put in your mouth, but spiritual food that you that come into your mind, in your heart.

And do you know that just like you need to eat every day physical food?

Do you know it's very important that every day you eat spiritual food?

The Bible, the Bible is where we get our spiritual food.

And you know what?

You have, we have cooks who prepare this spiritual food.

Like at home, mommy, daddy, they it's important that they feed you, teach you the Bible.

Like every day as much as possible.

And it's not just mommy and daddy at home.

Did you know we have a lot of spiritual cooks at this church?

Now, Sunday nights in covenant kids, a lot of you get physical food and spiritual food, right?

Miss Carmen's down there feeding, feeding you with her team.

But then you also have all your teachers that teach you God's word.

And that's really important.

Because you know what?

If you went days and days and days without being fed God's word, that would be kind of like going days and days without eating physical food.

And your body would get sick.

You wouldn't be healthy if you went days without physical food.

You know what?

You're not going to be spiritually healthy if you go days and days and days without your spiritual food.

That makes sense, right?

It's important.

And so we're going to talk, Pastor Tom's going to talk to your parents and to you.

We're going to talk more about what it means to let God feed us spiritually, that his truth comes into our minds.

We believe this.

And we live this way.

All right, that's what we're going to do.

So I'll see you back in your seats, all right?

And we're going to keep talking about this.

Thank you.

This morning we're beginning a new summer sermon series, Growing in Grace.

Pastor Josh and I will be preaching on this the next four weeks.

This morning we're going to look at God's word, the only foundation we have for our spiritual life.

Before I do read this text, I also want to just mention briefly, remind you, that there is a very important congregational meeting tonight here at 5 p.m.

And let me tell you, this is not just a budget meeting, although we will look at the budget.

We will look at how God provided this past year.

We will present the new budget for the new year, fiscal year, which starts tomorrow.

But lest you think, oh, I don't need to come and see all the numbers.

It's not about that.

It's not about the budget.

It's about understanding and discerning God's vision for this church, which leads to the ministries of this church.

And God provides the resources.

So come tonight to hear more about the vision that the elders believe that God is giving us for the coming year and the ministries, how that will impact that.

And oh yes, there is a potluck sufferer after that.

So I hope to see you tonight.

And you don't have to be a member to come.

If you're not a member yet, you're welcome to come as well.

Let's look at God's word.

2 Timothy chapter 3, beginning to read in verse 10.

2 Timothy 3 · chapter mention

You, however, he's addressing Timothy, you have followed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, and my steadfastness, my persecutions and sufferings that happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium, and at Lystra, which persecutions I endured, yet from them all the Lord rescued me.

Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evil people and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived.

But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you have 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.

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

This is the reading of God's powerful, infallible, and errant word.

Just ask for the Spirit's work in us.

Father, we thank you that you are God who did breathe out Scripture by your Spirit that we might be complete and mature in Christ.

So, Spirit of God, we pray, reign free.

Take control of our minds, of our hearts, even now, as your word pours in us, Lord, that we may believe.

In Jesus' name, amen.

Our only foundation is God's word.

There's a little motto on that sign there or on that corner.

What does it read underneath Alexandria Presbyterian Church?

You know?

Unchanging truth, changing lives.

Boy, have we witnessed that countless times over these many years.

Unchanging truth, changing lives.

There is no growing in grace apart from study of God's word.

May I say that again?

There is no growing in grace apart from the study of God's Word, being enlightened and empowered by the Holy Spirit.

Let me start off by pointing out just two errors that are very common when this subject is introduced.

First of all, many people rarely read God's Word.

All the seminaries and all the Bible colleges are united in this one conclusion.

With every new generation, there is a lesser understanding and knowledge of the Word of God.

When I went to seminary many years ago, we took a Bible knowledge test.

I'm told by people in seminaries that they've had to change their Bible knowledge test over the years because the new students coming in simply don't know the Bible nearly like they did 40, 50 years ago, 20 years ago.

And that's not a good sign.

A poll that was done not long ago came to this conclusion.

About one-third of church-going professing Christians read the Bible even once a week.

That has a lot to say about the state, the spiritual health of the church today.

Psalm 63, verse 5, David said, My soul will be satisfied as with fat in rich food.

Psalms 63:5

Alright, kids, we're going back to the spiritual, the physical food.

Think of your favorite meal.

Think of your favorite restaurant.

Or maybe, maybe it's one of the two of you that cooks at home, your favorite meal at home.

Whatever it is.

You sit down and you can just smell the aroma.

And it's as good, it tastes as good as it smells.

And afterward, you you thank the cook, the chef.

You say, this was delicious.

And you just savor that.

David says that's what it ought to be like spiritually when you read the Bible.

Only who do you thank?

Who's the cook?

Who's the chef?

God.

My soul will be satisfied as with fat and with rich food.

David is thinking of feeding on God's word.

He wrote this during a very hard time in the desert.

He's thinking about how God's word feeds him during hard times, how God's word strengthens him and encourages him.

Do you need encouraging?

Do you need your soul to be uplifted?

Think about again what we're talking about.

No one prepares a meal or cooks the food like God.

When we feast at his table, we will, like David in that song we sang earlier, we will continually sing his praises when we are feasting at his table.

Have you noticed that correlation in your life?

It's just harder to sing from your heart if you haven't been feasting in God's word, isn't it?

It is for me.

But when you're feasting and the Holy Spirit is opening up the Word of God and you're savoring the truth and the grace of God in new ways.

Sometimes I think we're going to blow the top off of the sanctuary with singing.

Because a lot of you, a lot of you are sitting down and you're eating well during the week.

And you're eating well on Sundays.

And you're singing your praises to Him as we should.

Something is clearly wrong in our spiritual health if we don't show up, if we don't sit down and we don't eat at His table.

Did you hear that?

Something is clearly wrong in your spiritual health.

If He's prepared the meals and He's given us all of this divine truth, inspired truth.

And he lays it out.

And he calls you to supper.

Did your mom used to call you to suffer?

Oh, when I was a kid, I was two yards down playing baseball, probably, or basketball or something.

Mom would shout.

She had several names for me if I didn't come the first time.

Come on.

Put your glove down, put your bat down.

It's time to eat.

How strange.

When such nourishing meals are prepared and we don't come.

And we don't show up.

And we don't sit down.

And we don't eat.

It will always have an impact on your spiritual health.

I promise you that.

What good is a great meal if we don't sit down and eat and enjoy it?

Peter says in 1 Peter chapter 2, like newborn babies crave the pure spiritual milk of God's word.

1 Peter 2 · chapter mention

Second air.

We can read God's word apart from the Holy Spirit's enlightening.

Dr.

Martin Lloyd-Jones says the most difficult thing in the world is to read the Bible with an open mind.

Take that in.

I think he might be right.

The most difficult thing in the world is to read the Bible with an open mind.

Without the help of the Holy Spirit, reading the Bible will only reinforce our own prejudices.

We just end up looking for more evidence to support what we already believe.

Boy, do I see that as a pastor.

I've seen that in my own life over the years, which I've had to repent of.

And I've seen it many times, many times in other people's lives.

I don't know how good we are at opening the Bible and reading it, dependent on the Holy Spirit to be our teacher.

And the smarter we are, and the more educated we are, the greater the temptation.

Well, you just open it.

You read it.

You understand, you're smart.

Oh, I've read this before.

Do you have that temptation?

I've read that.

Yeah, I read this before.

It just kind of buzzed right by it.

Have you learned yet how to study the Word of God, fully depending upon the Holy Spirit to be your teacher?

I've grown in that over my years.

I hope you're growing in that and understanding and believing that.

When we see only what we want to see in the Bible, it loses all power to transform us.

And this is where we have to be very careful.

We have to be honest with ourselves.

Three points inspiration, illumination, imitation.

Inspiration.

The text that I read, the last couple verses of the text.

All scripture is breathed out by God.

That is a critically important statement.

All scripture, all 66 books of the Bible.

We're not just a New Testament church here.

We're a 66th book of the Bible church.

All scripture is breathed out by God.

Theologians call this the doctrine of inspiration.

Quote, the extraordinary supernatural influence of the Holy Spirit upon the writers of Scripture as organs of revelation, by virtue of which influence their words are rendered as the very words of God.

This is what we mean when we speak of verbal inspiration.

The very words, the very thoughts, are from God, from the Holy Spirit.

God makes himself known.

God is knowable, but only through what he tells us.

Revelation is propositional, not existential.

We don't have time to get into that.

We talked about that in the inquirer's class.

See, in the last 125 years, especially in this country, this truth was just thrown aside.

And there was this new theology that started to be taught in the seminaries in this country and still is, that the Bible becomes the Word of God when it speaks to you.

It is not inherently the Word of God, but it becomes it when you're inspired by it.

That is just false.

But many churches believe it.

Many seminaries are teaching it.

God speaks through propositional truth, not the I, thou, existentially, but you might say the thou to me.

This is his word.

The word of God is God's word, whether you believe it or not.

It is.

All 66 books.

The sacred writings that we read in chapter 3, verse 15.

In 1 Timothy chapter 5, verse 18, Paul quotes both Deuteronomy, the Old Testament, and from Luke in the New Testament, when he refers to the sacred scriptures.

1 Timothy 5:18

So the sacred scriptures include all of the Old Testament and all of the New Testament, even as it was being written, it was received.

Do you remember what Paul said to the Thessalonians?

He commended them that you received the Word of God, not as the Word of men, but as the very Word of God.

You received it.

Yes.

This is the doctrine of inspiration.

All scripture is breathed out by God.

This is the only time this word occurs in the New Testament.

It's like the Holy Spirit inspired Paul to coin this word, to breathe out, suggesting teaching of divine origin.

The origin is of God, not of the writers who wrote the scriptures.

The breath of God, this divine outpouring.

Many scholars believe, and I agree, he likely, Paul likely got that thought under the inspiration of the Spirit from Psalm 33, verse 6.

Psalms 33:6

By the word of the Lord the heavens were made.

By the breath of his Mouth, all of their host.

In typical Hebrew parallelism, he's saying the same thing, but he's using different words and images.

By the word of the Lord, by the breath of his mouth.

God's word and breath are synonymous.

The origin is of God.

God has revealed everything he intended to reveal.

Revelation has ceased.

We don't need more revelation because God has said everything that he needs to say that we might be complete, as he says in the text, mature in our faith.

R.

C.

Sproul, I heard Spruell say one time, you don't have to give up your intellect to trust the word of God, but you do have to give up your pride.

There's quite a difference.

God's word is truth.

God's word is trustworthy.

God's word is necessary for spiritual health.

That's a doctrine of inspiration.

It's a technical term.

The second point is the doctrine of illumination, the supernatural working of the Holy Spirit when he helps us understand and believe God's word.

The word literally means turning on the lights.

So that prayer of illumination every Sunday before we preach in this church, we're asking the Holy Spirit to turn on the light, to enlighten our minds.

But this is very important that you understand.

The purpose of the preacher in this pulpit is not simply to make the truth clear, but to make the truth real.

You see, the preacher can't do that.

The preacher, to varying degrees of effectiveness, can make the truth clear, but that's not the ultimate purpose.

To make it real.

Only the Holy Spirit can do that.

You can't do that for yourself.

I can't do that for you.

But the good news is the Holy Spirit excels at that.

To take what you hear, to understand it, to believe it, to be changed by it.

Unchanging truth, changing lives.

Many of you could give a testimony today of what that looks like in your life.

As great as that might be.

What's your testimony?

What's your testimony of how God's word, through the empowering of God's Spirit, is changing your life now.

I had a conversation after the first worship service last week with one of our members, and uh I don't know how we got to this point, but conversation, but we did.

Well, she was just saying how much the word of God has been impacting her and her husband.

I said to her, in my opinion, because so many people come and go from APC and they travel on and they go to different places in the world, and some of you come back.

I said, you know, APC still believes everything that we believed.

When this one person came back recently, been gone for 10 years.

APC still believes everything that we've always believed, I think.

But I think many of us believe it more deeply.

I think many of us have been more changed and transformed by the power over the years.

Amen?

Can you testify to that?

Or are you just still stuck?

Did you get stuck?

I'm not asking, did you get stuck in your knowledge of God's Word?

I mean, intellectually.

Are you growing?

Is the Holy Spirit changing you?

Is the Holy Spirit showing you more and more of your sin?

Confessing that?

Is the Holy Spirit giving you faith to trust and to believe and to surrender to King Jesus?

That's the goal.

He gets that to the end.

He says that we would be complete, equipped for every good work.

Turn on the lights.

There's no better passage in all the Bible that I know of from 1 Corinthians chapter 2.

1 Corinthians 2 · chapter mention

Turning on the lights, verse 9.

What no eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor the heart of man imagined.

What God has prepared for those who love him.

These things God has revealed to us through the Holy Spirit.

For the Spirit searches everything, even the depths of God.

By the way, you know what he means by that.

He's searching you.

The Holy Spirit searches you as well.

And me.

Is he?

Is he believing?

Is he understanding?

Is he growing?

Is he enjoying the meals?

For you know, for who knows a person's thought except the spirit of that person which is in him?

So also nobody comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God.

Now we have received not the Spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given to us by God.

And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom, but taught by the Spirit.

Interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual.

Spiritual truths cannot be interpreted to people who are not spiritual.

Spiritual truths cannot be interpreted by people who are not, who have not been changed by the Holy Spirit, who are not surrendering to the Holy Spirit.

This is the doctrine of illumination.

This is the prayer.

This is the prayer that the Holy Spirit would be in control of the preacher, of the listeners.

It humbles us, doesn't it?

To really believe and understand that we're not in charge of this.

What we can do is submit ourselves.

What we can do is surrender.

What we can do is repent when the word is not transforming us.

But the Holy Spirit is the only one.

And that's why we pray.

Every Sunday.

There's a prayer meeting down that hall at 8.15 every Sunday.

And we are praying these very things that the Holy Spirit will show up and the Holy Spirit will do a powerful work in our midst.

Join us.

We would love to have you join us if you're able.

Every Sunday morning.

I'm going to take the liberty.

I'm going to take the risk.

I'm not going to name my friend, but he's with us today.

We prayed last Sunday morning in that prayer meeting that somebody would wake up.

God would wake them up and God would bring them to church and God would save them.

That gentleman is here today.

The power of God.

The power of God.

Gentleman came last week.

Showed up.

He believed God was telling him to go to church.

Hadn't been to church in a long time.

He came.

Under the preaching of the Word of God and powered by the Spirit of God.

He gave his life to Christ last Sunday.

This is the power of the Spirit.

This is the power of God's word.

This is the doctrine of illumination.

No one can teach us like the Holy Spirit.

Otherwise, we diligently search the scriptures yet miss him, as Jesus said to the Pharisees of his day.

As Sally Lloyd Jones said in her children's Bible book, every story in the Bible, what?

Whispers his name.

I love that phrase.

Every story in the Bible whispers the name of Jesus.

It all points to Jesus.

The psalmist said, open my eyes that I may see wonderful things.

Holy Spirit, open my eyes that I might see wonderful things in your law that I haven't seen.

I thought I understood.

The enemy will do anything he can to stop the spirit to make God's word come alive and bear fruit in your life.

You didn't need me to tell you that, did you?

The enemy will do everything he can to prevent you from really hearing the truth of God's word.

He will distract us, he will discourage us.

He's a master of substituting junk food, isn't he?

Look, I'm not trying to make this a guilt trip, but it's a fair I think it's a fair question.

How much time do you spend in this word during the week compared to all the other junk messages that you listen to?

We gotta wake up, people.

We can just go to our favorite news feed, we can go to our favorite social media app, and we can just kind of get mesmerized by it, can't we?

Enough.

Surrender and submit and repent.

If your heart does not long to sit down at the table of God's riches fair, repent.

I have to repent at times when I just seem to be satisfied with knowing it intellectually.

How about you?

I need that truth to grab my heart, to make the truth clear, yes, but to make the truth real.

And Jesus can do that by his spirit, through his word.

Yes, he can.

Let me say this.

This is not a light switch that you turn on.

Be filled with the Holy Spirit.

Probably a big reason why we struggle is we treat the Holy Spirit like He's a light switch.

When it comes to studying the Bible, you can't just say a quick prayer, especially if your heart's not really in it.

God help me to understand this.

But if you're not submitting to the Holy Spirit during the week, if you don't know what it means to be convicted of your sin and repent, if you don't know what it means to be filled with joy and gratitude for all that God has done for you in Jesus Christ, if you're not worshiping Him, if you're not learning how to submit to the Holy Spirit, to be controlled by the Holy Spirit, this is not just a little light switch.

Right?

It's a person that leads us.

It's a person that does a deepening work in us.

Then when we come to the scriptures, they come alive.

This is the way God chooses to work.

The doctrine of illumination.

Lastly, it's not a doctrine so much, it's imitation.

This is much of the text we've read.

The Apostle Paul is willing to say to Timothy, young Timothy, you, however, have followed my teaching, and you followed my way of life.

There's two things that are important in understanding and growing as a Christian.

To follow the teaching, the right teaching, the correct teaching.

But we all need people to teach us as well as the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit works through people.

No, he doesn't always, we've got a man who's going to, I think, to be at the second service today.

Where he usually comes.

He was saved in solitary confinement, reading his Bible.

The Holy Spirit spoke directly to him as he read the Bible.

The words just captured his heart, and he was saved.

But oftentimes the ordinary means that the Holy Spirit uses is other people, like the Apostle Paul saying here in this text.

He says, You, however, have followed my teaching, and he goes on to list other things.

From childhood you have been taught.

How many of you were taught from childhood?

I'm kind of curious.

Raise your hand.

I mean, were you raised in the church?

Keep your hands up.

Because it's curious.

A lot of us weren't.

Okay.

You had teachers.

You had teachers.

We've got a lady here who was invited to the high school graduation because she taught this student many, many years ago.

God's word got you a dinner invitation, didn't it, Kathy?

Praise God.

We need teachers.

We need godly men and women who will take this precious book and teach us.

So that we learn.

So that we grow.

Thank your teachers.

Most of all, thank God for your teachers.

The Apostle Paul says, follow my teaching, but follow my conduct.

Don't just do as I say, do as I do.

Can you say that?

Can you say?

Don't just listen to my words, but watch and imitate my life.

My aim in life.

He says, imitate my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness.

He even says, imitate my persecutions.

Did you catch that little line in there?

Did that wake you up?

All who live a godly life will be persecuted.

We don't have time to get into the details of this, but it's true.

Does your life resemble Christ enough that there's something in you that is going to tick off other people?

Not because of your personality, but just because you are imitating Christ, you will suffer some level of persecution.

The Bible doesn't say it only here, but it does.

Not only the Apostle Paul did Timothy learn from, but his grandmother and his mother, Lois and Eunice.

Who taught you, he says?

So here's the question.

Not only who taught you, but who is teaching you today?

Who's teaching you the Word of God?

All Scripture is profitable.

The purpose of the Word of God, he goes, he closes with.

Yes.

I've actually grown to love Leviticus.

It took me a while.

If I do.

All Scripture is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for warnings.

I mean, we would have to be pretty naive to think that we don't need warnings.

And the fact of the matter is, that occupies a good bit of my ministry.

There's not a time, there's not a week in the year, there's not a week in the calendar where I'm not involved in rebuking somebody, warning somebody.

Why would we think differently?

Come on, wake up in the real world.

People stumble.

People take their eyes off of Jesus.

People go down unhealthy paths.

Of course we have to do this.

That's the work of an elder.

It's the work of a pastor.

Of course that's necessary.

For reproof.

Proverbs 27 says, better is open rebuke than hidden love.

Bonhoeffer said, nothing is more compassionate than the severe rebuke that calls a brother back from the path of sin.

For correction.

This seems to be the emphasis, the opposite side, the positive side of rebuking for correction.

It's not rebuking in a more formal sense, it's just correcting, coming alongside people and saying, well, I'm not sure that's true.

I'm not sure your understanding of the Bible on that point is true.

Let's talk about that.

Let's study God's Word.

And then lastly, for training in righteousness.

Notice he talks about teaching and training.

Teaching is the what, training is the how.

It's very important that we come alongside of people and teach them how to read the Bible, how to pray, how to walk with God.

We all need that in growing.

Do you have somebody like that in your life?

I see more and more of that happening at this church.

Praise God.

I want to close with something that the elders studied together last month.

From Hosea chapter 14, verse 5.

Hosea 14:5

God says, I will be like the dew to Israel.

He will blossom like a lily.

God uses the dew that falls on leaves and the grass in the morning to give us a beautiful description of what the Word of God ought to be to us.

We've all witnessed the grass and the flowers with the tiny drops of that refreshing water.

By using this example, God is saying that He will be like the dew to us, which settles quietly in the night and coats the ground by morning.

But dew can't form when it's too hot, when the conditions aren't right, or it's too windy.

The conditions have to be right for the dew to form.

Likewise, we cannot be refreshed by God.

The word will not sink and do its work if we're too busy running around.

If we're just so distracted, if we're so anxious, if we're already so convinced of our positions.

Let's linger, people.

Let's learn how to linger in God's word, in prayer, in worship.

More and more over the years we've seen people lingering for prayer after the worship service, and God is blessed.

Lingering may look different, but I'm giving you permission today that at the end of the worship service, you don't have to stand up and go out.

You don't have to stand up and greet somebody.

I mean, it's good to do that when we when the Spirit leads.

I have found more and more in my own life that I need to linger at times.

And there may be times when you just linger in the sanctuary.

That's fine.

You don't have to rush out.

You don't have to go downstairs right away.

Are you learning how to linger?

So that the dew of the Lord will settle on you.

When you take in the truth, don't just compartmentalize it.

Let the Spirit continue to speak through the Word.

That's a beautiful thing.

How firm a foundation is God's word.

We're going to sing that in a minute.

As the worship team was discussing this hymn this week, I just made a comment.

This is such a great pastoral hymn.

Fear not, whatever you're going through.

Well, I know what a lot of you are going through.

I know that there's a lot of fear at times.

When through deep waters I call you to go.

I know some of us are going through deep waters right now.

When through fiery trials your pathway shall lie.

Some of you are going through some really fiery trials.

Whatever we're going through, what we need is the firm foundation of God's word.

How firm a foundation, you saints of the Lord, is laid for your faith in his excellent word.

What more can he say to you than he has said?

Father, keep speaking.

Through your word by your Spirit.

Keep moving, Spirit of God.

We need your touch.

We need to surrender.

We need to receive that we might sing your praises.

In Jesus' name we come.

Amen.