2 Timothy 3.16-17

This sermon was recorded at Faith Evangelical Free Church in Grand Forks, North Dakota.

Second Timothy chapter 3, please.

2 Timothy 3 · chapter mention

If you will, 2 Timothy Chapter 3, Pastor Jason asked me to share a quick word with you this morning.

2 Timothy 3 · chapter mention

And this is primarily based on that first ingredient that I hadn't told you about the three main components of a student ministry.

And really one of the main components of any ministry in the church, if it's going to be called Christian and especially a ministry of the church, it has to be fundamentally grounded in the Word of God.

And I've become more convinced that I want to be branded a biblical man more and more.

In the past few months, I have determined that the Word of God is sufficient for everything pertaining to life and godliness, both in my personal life, in my home, and especially in the church.

It is what directs us in how we should go in every manner.

And so that's what I want to take you to here this morning, Second Timothy chapter three, verse sixteen.

Second Timothy chapter three, verse sixteen.

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 and equipped for every good work.

There's a man named Lieutenant George DeLong in 1879.

He set out with a crew on the USS Janet in hopes of claiming the North Pole for the United States, and that's just such an American thing to do at the time, right?

DeLong's plans were based on maps developed by the mapmakers of the time, and most mapmakers of the time believed that there was an open polar, ice-free sea at the top of the North Pole.

So uh picture with me, this is what they had imagined, that at the very top of the Earth, it's just completely free of ice and it's completely smooth sailing, okay?

Filled with all sorts of marine life.

This was a theory, okay, and the hypothesis at the time.

They believed that this water at the North Pole uh could be smoothly sailed, much as one might sail across the Caribbean or the Mediterranean.

However, every previous expedition that had sailed north in search of the sea had run into the problem, and that problem's name was ice.

I hear out in North Dakota you're very familiar with that problem.

Uh that problem was in the ocean and they couldn't get to the North Pole.

So you might think that running into ice every single time would lead scientists to ultimately abandon this theory and think of something else.

Why would they constantly be running into ice every time they sailed to the North Pole?

Well, instead, they merely modified their original theory by adding the idea of a thermometric gateway.

It's a fancy word meaning that there's this big ice ring surrounding the North Pole.

And you just have to find an opening in that ice, that big ice ring.

You've got to find an opening.

Once you break through that opening, you're golden, you'll get there, and then you'll find that big open sea that they were talking about.

And so uh George DeLong and his crew wanted to find that gateway, wanted to find that portal to break through that big, uh, that big ice ring.

Um, but they couldn't.

Uh it didn't take long for them to realize that all the cartographers, scientists, and geographers had been wrong.

He wrote in his in his journal, I pronounce a thermometric gateway to the North Pole a delusion and a snare.

So it wasn't only wrong and imaginary, it was a trap for anyone who was trying to find the North Pole.

So DeLong and his crew came to grips with the fact that they had been duped, and by then it had been too late.

They were running up against the rocks of hardened ice, and in September 1879, the USS Janet had got trapped in the ice pack, and his crew escaped and tried to go toward Siberia.

The crew got separated, and some made it to Siberia and survive.

Others survived others, continued their lonely trek through the ice, and as for George DeLong, he died in late October 1881 of starvation.

A disaster of an expedition merely because they were going off of human reasoning and logic.

They were going on the ideas of men and not off of truth.

It was one thing to say, hey, we don't know.

It was a complete another to say, this is what I think it is.

Here you go, go try it.

And that's exactly what happens a lot of times in the church.

The reason I selected this passage is because I want to present to you here this morning the sufficiency of Scripture in all of life, especially in the life of the church.

Okay?

It is not my ideas or philosophies that matter because ultimately my ideas or Jason's ideas, as bright of a man he is, his ideas, his philosophies, they're going to take a church, they're going to take a ministry, they're going to take people and crash them headlong into disaster.

Unless we are grounded and rooted into the Word of God.

And so let's look at the sufficiency of Scripture.

And I want us to look first and foremost at the sufficiency and the origin of Scripture.

Uh, setting up some of the context here.

Timothy is a protege of Paul.

Uh Paul spent some time mentoring Timothy, and Timothy is set up as an elder in the church of Ephesus.

Okay, so he's probably about my age, okay?

He's in his young mid-to uh uh young to mid-thirties.

Um, he's a younger pastor, um, and he tells them that there's going to be people who come and they are going to wreck the church by bringing their own ideas, their own philosophies, their own evil doctrines into the church.

And he tells Timothy, if you look at verse 14, this is what he says, but as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed.

Knowing from whom you learned it, that would be his mom and grandma.

Family ministry, parents taking that role and discipling their children.

He says, Knowing from whom you learned it, and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings.

And at this point, when Paul says that to young Timothy, he's talking about the Old Testament.

And I want to just uh side note, any pastor uh presents to you that you can disregard the Old Testament, unhitch it from the New, um, or separate it in any way, is teaching something that is not coherent with the New Testament.

The New Testament tells us that the Old Testament is just as important because, according to Paul, it's what made Timothy wise to salvation.

Look at it.

Uh how from childhood you have been acquainted with the second sacred writings, which would be the Old Testament scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Jesus Christ.

So the Old Testament at this point was enough for Timothy to get acquainted with for salvation in Jesus Christ, the sufficiency of Scripture.

Then he goes on in verse 16 and he talks about Scripture, and again, the sufficiency in its origin.

He says all scripture is breathed out by God, and we're going to stop there because Scripture's origin begins and ends with God.

God didn't start something and let the minds of men finish it.

He didn't give people creative license to speak on his behalf.

Rather, all of Scripture, from Genesis to Revelation, every dot of the eye, every cross of the T begins and ends with God.

This is what it means to be breathed out by God, or rather, as some translations put it, inspired.

Second Peter, the Apostle Peter, one of Jesus' closest friends, explains it a little bit better than I could.

Of course he does, because it's in Scripture.

2 Peter 121 says this no prophecy, or rather writing of Scripture, was ever produced by the will of men, but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.

God impressed the knowledge into them.

He impressed the ideas and what he wanted down on the page, and these men wrote it.

He didn't say, communicate some ideas for me and do it however you like.

He said, Write this.

And that's what they did, which is why every single word in the Bible matters.

That's why Bible translation even matters.

Because words matter according to God.

Scripture is sufficient in its origin, but it's also sufficient in its aim.

It starts again, it begins and ends with God, but it also serves a purpose.

What is that purpose?

If we keep reading verse 16 into 17, it says, All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete and equipped for every good work.

And as we as we move along into this passage and as we get ready to close, don't get tripped up by that word profitable.

Okay?

Because I don't know if you're like me.

When I think of the word profitable, I think beneficial, but not necessary.

Are you tracking?

Okay.

So here's what I'm saying.

It is profitable to exercise, right?

It's profitable.

Not everyone exercises, okay?

But it's certainly proven to be helpful, it's certainly proven to be profitable.

It is profitable to rotate your tires every five to seven thousand miles, right?

Otherwise, you're going to wear out the tread and you're going to need to replace your tires sooner than you ought to.

It is also, now stick with me on this.

It is very profitable to drink coffee.

And all God's people said.

Amen.

Thank you.

Alright.

I think it was a louder Amen on the 8 a.m.

service because they were they were kind of living off of coffee at that point.

You guys have had a few cups and you're just you're settling into the groove.

Now, this isn't just my opinion, okay?

Alright, this comes from science.

So uh of course, in two years it'll be completely different.

Scientists will be saying, Don't drink coffee, stay away, it will kill you, blah.

Um, and then two years after that, they'll be like, no, drink all the coffee you want, two pots a day, it'll be great.

But as of now, as of my prep prep for this message, okay, here's what here's the profits of drinking coffee.

Multiple studies have shown that coffee can lower your risk of cirrhosis by as much as 80%.

Hallelujah.

Those who drank four or more cups per day felt the strongest effect, and coffee may also lower your risk of liver cancer by around 40%.

So I'm trying to be healthy just by drinking coffee.

Now, is coffee necessary?

You tea drinkers will say no.

Okay?

And some of you people who stay away from it and just say I drink Dr.

Pepper or Coke instead, okay, you just say I don't need coffee.

Is coffee necessary?

No.

Is it profitable?

I would say yes.

And it lists these helpful, profitable things so I can adequately communicate what this word profitable means and how the apostle is not trying to use it.

He's not trying to use it in a way that this is just some sort of add-on to your life that's going to make your life better.

It's beneficial to you, but it's not necessary.

That's not what he's communicating here.

He's not saying that this book is an option and it can improve your life, but not a necessity.

Rather, it should be seen as you needing to get to a destination that you are completely unable to unless this book intervenes in your life.

Scripture is the water you need in a very d uh in a vast dry desert.

It is what keeps you afloat in the middle of the deepest ocean.

And if you're tracking with what I'm saying here, it is the oxygen that your body needs to survive.

It is far more important and vital than just a good idea or a useful tool.

It is the only thing worth gaining in life.

I'd say that's very profitable indeed.

I profit right now at this moment because I am breathing oxygen.

Oxygen is profitable for me, but once you remove that oxygen from my body, I die.

Once you remove scripture from the life of the church, ministries run headlong into disaster and they begin to die.

This is profitable not in that it's helpful, but rather it is a necessity.

As we get ready to wrap up, I want to uh look at what it is profitable for.

What is Scripture's aim here, as Paul writes it to young Timothy?

It's profitable for teaching that we don't know things, so we go to the word to find them out.

Now, does Scripture talk to you about how to use your cell phone?

Certainly not.

Does it tell you about your Mac?

No.

Do we have PC guys in here?

I mean, uh is there okay.

I see a nod of the head.

They're kind of quietly back there.

Okay.

Um it doesn't tell you about whether or not you should take that pay raise.

Uh it doesn't tell you whether or not you should um, you know, do uh use uh uh cloth diapers or store-bought diapers or any of that.

We can go to scripture to learn about how God wants me to operate and function as a parent.

With regards to my phone, the Bible teaches me about idolatry.

It teaches me about those issues that are at the core, not every single detail of those issues, but it's profitable for teaching.

If you have questions, if you need answers, the word of God is the perfect place to seek those out.

Uh for reproof, or rather rebuking.

Uh say you are running into a doctrine that is completely off.

Scripture is the one thing that's going to bring you on track.

Not the persuasion of well-articulate people or the opinions of others.

Scripture is what's going to make you make a U-turn if you're running into wrong, false teaching.

Uh, it's useful for correction.

Maybe you're not completely off and need to make a U-turn, but maybe you need to make a course correction.

Maybe you need to go slightly more uh towards the grace of Christ and shifting from uh the obedience to the law.

Um for for uh training in righteousness.

And here's verse 17.

This is where I want to land the plane this morning.

Okay?

This is the summation of all that stuff that we could learn.

Here's the goal that the man of God may be complete.

The word means rather mature.

Make it be complete, equipped for every good work.

What is our goal here at the church?

What is our goal with our students?

Is it to simply live good lives?

Making good citizens of the country, making people who just will obey their parents and pay their taxes and all that.

Those are certainly admirable.

I have a higher goal than that.

It's so that students can find the will of God for their lives.

And in finding their will for God in their lives, they go to the Word and they find out how that will of God plays out in their lives, that they may be complete and equipped for every good endeavor that God calls them to.

Church, I pray that that's your desire here this morning, also.

Your desire is to find out what is God wanting with my life, and if you want the answers to that question, you go to God's word, which is completely capable, completely sufficient for training you, for equipping you for everything that God's going to call you to do in your life.

Let's pray.

God in heaven, we thank you.

That you have given us your words, which implies, Lord, that you have spoken to us.

We don't need to go and try and hear the word of God.

We merely need to open these pages and read it out loud because you have spoken.

Which is such a grace to us, because even though I myself am rebellious to you, Lord, you have sought fit to give me a copy of your word, to speak to me through it, to bring salvation through Jesus Christ.

I pray for this church, I pray for every ministry, that we would be a people of the word of God.

We pray this in Christ's name.

Amen.

That concludes this sermon from Faith Evangelical Free Church.

Our mission is to declare the Word of God and disciple believers into mature, devoted followers of Jesus.

You can learn more by visiting our website at faithfree.com.