How to Be Equipped for Every Good Work

Alright, good job. We'll be in 2nd Timothy chapter 3 tonight.

2nd Timothy chapter 3. We'll finish the chapter.

We'll start in verse 10.

Last week we saw Paul mention some who were not good people, who were lovers of themselves, who were selfish, who didn't care anything about God.

They were just evil people. And these were the kind of people that Timothy was going to encounter.

These were the type of people that were around and they were deceiving others who were around.

Nothing has changed. These are still the types of people that we see in our world today.

So long as there are people on the world, there will be evil people in the world.

And as Christians, we will encounter these people. But we must not lose heart.

We have to continue to run the race with endurance, keeping our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith.

The author of Hebrews reminds his audience in Hebrews chapter 12. And that's a good reminder for us tonight.

Hebrews 12 · chapter mention

We see this contrast here in chapter 3 of those who are evil, who are not doing right, who are not living in the godly way.

And here in the second half of chapter 3, we see how Paul calls Timothy to live in a better way than that, in a more godly way than that.

So let's pray and then we'll get started. Father God, we come to you tonight. We thank you for your good word.

I pray that you would help us to grow in your word tonight, dear Lord, as we are about to see.

Your word is good for us. It's profitable for us, dear Lord, in every way.

So I pray that we would be those who seek you, dear Lord, who follow the examples of Jesus,

who follow the example of those that we have seen around us, dear Lord, that have been good Christian men and women,

that we grow in them, that we grow in your word. And I pray, dear Lord, that your spirit would work in us tonight,

that you'd hide me behind the cross, that I'd preach and teach in a way that brings glory and honor to you.

In Jesus' name I pray it. Amen.

Second Timothy chapter 3 verse 10. Now he says in verse 9, if we backtrack a little bit, of those who were evil folks,

2 Timothy 3:10

but they will not make further progress, for their lack of understanding will be clear to all.

And that's what we see. Those who are doing evil, they're not going to make much progress.

Eventually they're going to fall by the wayside. But those who trust God and do God's will and are obedient to God,

then they are going to succeed. So those who were coming against Timothy, they were going to fail.

Timothy, on the other hand, is being encouraged to continue to trust God so that he will succeed.

Verse 10, but you have followed my teaching, conduct, purpose, faith, patience, love, and endurance.

Okay, so those that we had just saw last week, they weren't going to make it because they were following evil things.

They were following their own selfish desires. But Paul encourages Timothy by saying,

but you are not like them and you don't want to be like them. But you have followed something better.

You followed a better example. You followed an example that will lead to blessing and that will lead to victory.

And that example is that of Paul. Now if you go back to Acts chapter 16, we see that it's there that he picks up Timothy.

Acts 16 · chapter mention

Timothy is kind of working alongside Paul. Now Paul had a lot of people that he went from place to place

and he would often mention certain people. And Timothy was one of those people that worked alongside Paul

and obviously had seen Paul and had listened to Paul. And Paul had been a good example to Timothy in a lot of ways.

He lists some of those ways because you have followed my teaching. Okay, so Paul was teaching good things,

things of Jesus Christ, things of God's Word. He followed his conduct, his purpose, his faith, his patience, his love, his endurance.

What about us? Do we have anybody in our life that we can look to? Maybe it's a man or maybe it's a woman that we can look to

in our life that's exhibited some of these qualities. These are the people that we need to seek out in our life as Christians.

We need to seek men and women of wisdom, godly men and women that have given an example that is worthy of following.

Now Paul had lived that kind of example and had given Timothy good things to follow. What about you and I?

What about these areas in our life? Are we being taught? Are we learning God's Word?

Are we seeking God's Word to see what it means, to see how God can teach us through his words and through other brothers and sisters in Christ?

What about our conduct? Not only are we to seek those who can impart wisdom on us, but we should seek to be an example to others.

So what about ourselves? Are we those who are helping others to learn and grow in the Lord?

Are we those who are exhibiting good conduct? What's our behavior like?

When I was a kid in school, I don't know if this still happens or not, but every six weeks we'd get our report card

and one of those sections on that report card was conduct. You'd get a grade in there.

And usually it was a B or a C. I wasn't too good. I didn't have good conduct.

But as Christians, we've got to strive to do better than a B or a C, especially a D and an F.

We want to be those who behave well, who don't act foolish and don't just go off and get angry and say and do things that are not good.

We want to be those who have good conduct. And that's what Paul says.

Look, I've taught you well. You've seen how I've conducted myself. You've seen how I have behaved. I've given you a good example.

Can we say that about our lives to other people? He says, you've followed my purpose.

Now, it's important that we have some purpose in life.

Sometimes people can get into despair because they don't feel like they have a purpose in life.

And a lot of times that comes down to to kind of our worldly desires and our worldly possessions.

And and really people say, well, I don't know what my career is going to be or I don't know what I need to do

or I don't find any satisfaction or any joy in anything.

And oftentimes our despair comes because we're looking for for some type of purpose in things of the world and our and our jobs or our wealth or our fame or status, whatever it may be.

But our purpose in life, as God calls us, is to love God and to love people, to serve God and to serve people.

That is our purpose. And it may not be a glamorous life.

That's that's not to say that maybe we aren't blessed and maybe sometimes things are better than other times.

Perhaps there are times in life that life is going to be bad.

But if our purpose is serving God and serving other people, if our purpose is loving God and loving other people,

then whether our life is up or down, it's not going to have as much of an effect on us because we realize what our purpose is.

Our purpose is to not get a big job, to make big money, to get rich, to get famous.

That's not our purpose. Our purpose is not to save up for retirement so we can retire and kick our feet up on the beach.

That's a very American thing. Our minds think that way.

But our purpose is not that anywhere in Scripture. Our purpose is to love God and to serve him.

It's to love other people and to serve them. That is our purpose.

And that's our purpose until the day we die. We don't retire. We don't get to an age where we say, OK, I'm 65 now.

I've accomplished my purpose. No, our purpose in life is to love God and to love people and to let that love be shown in a variety of ways.

And Paul had a purpose. It was to serve the Lord. And that's why Paul could be beaten. He could be stoned.

He could be thrown into prison. And what did Paul keep doing? He did not get into despair.

He got out of jail. He got picked up after being stoned and he went on his way. Why? Because he knew his purpose.

And his purpose was not for the world. His purpose was for God.

And we need to realize that because that can easily be overshadowed by the things of the world.

So Paul knew what his purpose was and he wanted Timothy to recognize that purpose.

He wanted Timothy to know you have a purpose. Now, in Timothy's case, his purpose was to be a leader for God, for those people that he was sent to.

Now, we might not all be called to a leadership role as a pastor or missionary, maybe as Paul or Timothy was.

But our purpose is to serve God in whatever capacity we can.

So if we work at a job, we serve God at that job. If we go to school, we serve God at school.

Whatever it is, we all have opportunities to serve and our purpose is to serve God. It's to serve people. It's to love God. It's to love people.

Are we doing that in our life? If we don't...if we say we don't have purpose, then we need to be in God's Word and see what God calls us to.

But obviously, Paul lived with a purpose and he encouraged Timothy to do the same thing.

He said, you've followed my faith. Obviously, Paul had been a good example of what it means to have faith in God, to persevere even through difficulties.

Now, it's easy for us to have faith when all is well, but Paul is an example of what it means to trust in God even when things were not well.

And he tells Timothy, follow my example. Patience. Follow my patience. Can we say that to people? Could you say that tonight?

Could you go up to somebody and say, you need to be patient like me? Oh, I couldn't say that.

I couldn't say it with a clear conscience because there are times that I'm not as patient as I should be.

Okay, so Paul says, I've been a good example of patience for you. So, so do this.

You think, well, I can look at Paul and see his patience and that's good. I'm not saying that scripture is not a good example.

But what's also good is to look to somebody you know, somebody in your life, somebody you've seen.

You probably have already thought of somebody just that quick that you think, I wish I was patient like them.

That person that you're going through your mind right now and you're trying to find a time that you really remember them just going off and you're having a hard time.

You can't remember a time when they did. Those are the type of people. Those are the men and women that's lived out patience.

We need to look to them. Just as Paul says to Timothy, look to me and look to my patience.

Well, we want to be those who look to those who have patience in our life and we want to be those who have that same patience ourselves.

He's followed his love. Okay, this is important. We just talked about this a second ago.

The importance to love God and to love people. That's not always easy to do. That's a very hard thing to do.

It's very hard to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute you.

Yet those are the types of examples we see of Jesus and of Paul. We see what true love is.

It's easy to love somebody when everything is going good. It's easy to love somebody when when people do you good.

It's a lot harder to love people when they do you wrong.

And sadly, spoiler alert, if you've never experienced this in your life, some people are going to do you wrong.

You can do right by them. You can be good to them. And some people are going to do you wrong.

People who are close to you, people who you trust, people are going to hurt you,

and they are going to say things that aren't right and they are going to they are going to mistreat you.

And that's where the rubber really meets the road as to whether or not we're going to love people.

We can say we're going to love them. But man, it's it's really tough when when something like that happens in your life.

So we really got to trust God and say, OK, God, help me to love that way.

Help me to love like you love. Help me to love like maybe some example we see in this world loves.

Help me to love like Paul helped me to to follow a better example.

That's what Paul is telling him here.

You need to follow the better example that you have seen.

Don't fall into the trap like those that we looked at in the verses last week,

those who were just consumed with themselves and not focused on God.

Don't follow the example of the world. Follow better examples.

And Paul had been a good example for Timothy.

And he says here at the end of this this part of the verse and endurance follow endurance.

Now talking about a while ago, Hebrews run the race with endurance.

Well, Paul certainly ran the race with endurance.

How many times would you have to be beaten and mocked and stoned or in prison before you give up?

I don't know. I'd like to stand here tonight.

And we probably all would say, I wouldn't give up.

I could be beaten and mocked and stoned every week and I wouldn't give up.

Well, maybe we would or maybe we would not.

I don't know. You see, those are things that we don't know.

We can think that we're ready to stand the test and we're ready to endure.

But their only way to know is to go through situations.

And so we pray that God would give us endurance.

Lord knows none of us want to have to ever suffer in that way.

We don't want to see people we love suffer in that way.

But the reality is, is that sometimes Christians suffer in that way.

And so we have to be willing to endure.

The smallest things are even those big things.

That same type of suffering that Paul did.

Are we those who can endure when people come against us, when people attack us, when people mock us for our faith?

Or even worse, when people attack us physically?

I don't know. Maybe that's never happened to any of you.

Maybe it has. I don't know.

But it's a lot harder to endure when we really face opposition.

It's not hard for me to endure tonight.

We all come in here and we love God and we want to hear the Word of God and we want to grow in the Word of God.

At least I think we do. I'll give you the benefit of the doubt.

There's no endurance.

But man, there's some places in the world, if I went and said these things that I was saying or preached the gospel,

that it wouldn't be well received.

It wouldn't be well received at all. I'd be in jail.

I'd be killed in a lot of parts of the world.

And so it's easy for us to endure in our comfort zone.

But we're not always going to be in our comfort zone.

And that's part of what Paul's been telling Timothy throughout these two letters that he wrote him.

Look, you got a job to do. Your purpose is to serve the Lord.

But you're going to have to endure because it's not always going to be easy.

Verse 11, along with persecutions and sufferings that came to me in Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra,

what persecutions I endured, yet the Lord rescued me from them all.

OK, so he followed all of these different things we just talked about.

He also followed along with him in his persecutions and his sufferings in Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra.

This is what we see when we go back into the book of Acts 13, 14, all the way up through 16.

We see some of these types of things.

And it appears as though Timothy was there.

He was either known or aware of what Paul was doing, possibly even before he began to serve alongside Paul.

So Paul says, look, Timothy, you have been with me for a long time.

You have seen the way I've lived my life.

You've been there beside me and I've given you a better example to follow.

And what does he say? In the midst of all that he's gone through, the Lord rescued me.

Now, that's good news. The Lord rescues us.

We have to remember that. In those seasons of suffering, when it's hard to endure,

we have to know that the Lord will rescue us.

Now, it's hard because God doesn't always rescue us when and how we want.

Sometimes God rescues us from our situations here in this life.

We're in prison for preaching the gospel and maybe we get released from prison.

God rescues us from that.

There are other Christians who die in prison serving the Lord, loving the Lord,

and their rescue comes through their death. Their escape comes through their death.

And so God will always rescue his people.

Ultimately, those who trust God will be rescued. Praise the Lord.

We got to remember that. Whatever we go through, the suffering we're experiencing

will not have the final say. It will end.

It may end in some way in this life. It may end in our death.

But the victory will come through Jesus Christ for those who were in God.

And we have to remember to endure that we will be rescued in the same way that Paul was.

There were occasions that Paul was rescued and continued his ministry,

but ultimately Paul was taken home to be with the Lord, and that was his ultimate rescue.

Verse 12.

In fact, all those who want to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.

Now, wait a minute. That's pretty plain right there.

Now, there's a large group of people in the world. I see it sometimes and I hear it sometimes,

and I don't necessarily agree with it, but there's a large portion of people that say

that nothing bad is ever going to happen if you're a Christian,

and if something bad is happening, it's because you don't have enough faith.

If they're suffering in your life or pain in your life or whatever it is in your life,

it's because you don't have enough faith. God would never allow his people to suffer.

But that's not at all what the scripture says. The scripture does not say that.

And here we see plainly those who want to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.

So if we live long enough and we serve the Lord long enough and we do the work of God

and we tell people of Jesus Christ, there will be a point eventually where some persecution will come,

where somebody will come against us, where somebody will attack us,

where somebody will not like to hear what we have to say.

And so the Bible, I believe, says just the opposite of what so many would preach and teach in our world today,

that God wants to give you everything, health and wealth, and everything's going to be okay,

and there never has to be a bad day in your life if you would only trust God more.

That is not biblical. That is not what God's Word says.

I want to read you a portion of scripture tonight.

I'm not going to tell you who this scripture is talking about or where it is just yet.

Listen to this right here.

Now, who do you think those people are that that's talking about?

What people is that talking about?

The people that that is talking about are God's people.

These are godly Christian men and women, and what does it say?

It says that they suffered greatly because they were men and women of faith.

Now, that's found in Hebrews chapter 11, at the end of the chapter.

Hebrews 11 · chapter mention

He goes through and he talks about all these great heroes of faith,

these men and women, and at the end of the chapter, he says,

look, and all of these that have served the Lord through the years,

they have suffered greatly.

And then he goes on to say that the world was not worthy of them.

Wow, what a beautiful thing.

The world was not worthy of the men and the women of faith.

The world tried to kill them and did kill them and persecute them and attack them,

and he says the world was not worthy of them.

And then he goes on to say all these were approved through their faith.

Wow, they were approved through their faith.

They persevered.

They endured because of their faith.

And that's exactly what Paul is telling us here in this passage we look at tonight.

He says, look, if you're going to live for God, then know that it's not going to be easy.

And if you think it's going to be easy, then go back and look at Hebrews 11

and some of these that we see listed there.

It's not easy.

Oftentimes, those who stand for the Lord, they suffer and they suffer greatly.

So Paul is trying to encourage Timothy because he knows that Timothy's job,

what's before him in serving the Lord, is not going to be easy.

Now, I don't know, I'm not trying to discourage you tonight.

We're just trying to be realistic that it's hard to serve the Lord.

It's rewarding to serve the Lord.

There's nothing more beautiful than serving the Lord and enduring for the Lord.

But it ain't going to be easy.

And if I sit here and told you tonight that it was going to be

and that your life would be rosy if you just serve God better or had more faith,

then that would not be true to Scripture.

Scripture says, as Paul says here, look, be ready, Timothy,

because they're suffering for those who serve the Lord.

Continuing on, verse 13.

Evil people and imposters will become worse, deceiving and being deceived.

But as for you, continue in what you have learned and firmly believe.

You know those who taught you.

Okay, so here we kind of see that same contrast.

Okay, those that we talked about last week that were evil,

well, they're just going to keep getting more and more evil.

They're going to be deceived themselves.

They're going to deceive others.

But as for you, Timothy, you need to keep growing and you need to stand firm

in those things that you have learned, that you have seen in me.

You know those who taught you.

That is to say that there have been people in Timothy's life

that have raised Timothy to know the Word of God and to live by the Word of God.

We see that back at 2 Timothy chapter 1.

2 Timothy 1 · chapter mention

It talks about, Paul talks about Timothy's mother and grandmother,

Noah and Eunice, that he was raised by a Christian mother and grandmother.

So from a young age, he knew the scripture.

He was exposed to the Word of God.

He was brought up in a godly household.

And there is nothing more important for a child

than to grow up in a godly household with both parents.

That makes a world of difference.

And he says, look, you know those who taught you.

Probably not only his grandma and his mom,

but probably many others that were in Timothy's life.

Paul being one of them.

You know those who taught you.

So remember those who have been your example and who have been your teachers.

That's good advice for us.

Think about those Christian men and women in your life

that have been a good example to you, that have been good teachers to you,

that have been an example of what faith really is.

Think about those people and try to follow their example

as they follow the example of Jesus Christ.

Hebrews chapter 13 verse 7 says,

Hebrews 13:7

Remember your leaders who have spoken God's Word to you

as you carefully observe the outcome of their lives, imitate them.

Isn't that an interesting thing there?

Okay, so look at those who've led you.

Look at those who have taught you.

And as you look at their life, imitate them.

If their life has turned out good.

Now that's important.

There's a lot of people who will try to teach us things and who will try to lead us.

But we don't want to follow everybody who teaches and leads us.

Paul says there's something, or excuse me, the writer of Hebrews says

there's something we can look to as you carefully observe the outcome of their lives.

Okay, so those who were teaching you, how did their life turn out?

If somebody's giving you advice on something in life and their life is a mess,

well, look at the outcome of their life.

Don't listen to their advice if their life is a mess.

Follow the outcome of their life.

And as you see their life, as you see them grow in the Lord,

as you see their faith strengthen, then Hebrews says,

look, these are the ones you want to follow.

So we want to follow those who have passed the test.

So who are those men and women in your life who have passed the test?

There are some.

There are some who have been those good people that they have walked the walk.

They've talked the talk, but you've seen that they've walked the walk.

Those are the types of men and women that we want to surround ourselves with

and that we want to go to and seek wisdom from and to grow in those types of people.

Continuing on, verse 16.

And you know that from childhood you have known the sacred scriptures,

which are able to give you wisdom for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.

Now, certainly when Timothy was a child, when it talks about the sacred scriptures,

it's talking about what we would call the Old Testament.

Now, certainly there is great wisdom in the Old Testament,

and even in the Old Testament it points to Jesus Christ.

We have to remember that when we read these New Testament texts

and we read about the scriptures, it's talking about most of the time,

almost all the time, it's talking about the Old Testament scripture

because most of what we're reading in the New Testament hadn't even been written yet.

This was written probably around 60, 65 AD,

and then you look at something like Luke was written around 90 AD,

some 30 years later almost.

And so when we see the scriptures mentioned in the New Testament,

it's almost always talking about the Old Testament scriptures.

And isn't it interesting here that it says that the scriptures are able to give you wisdom

for salvation through faith in Jesus Christ.

So even the Old Testament scriptures, there's enough there, there's wisdom there,

that if we really begin to seek the scriptures, they point us forward to Jesus Christ.

And in the case of Timothy, of course, Jesus Christ had come.

He had already been crucified and resurrected.

He had seen those scriptures come to a fulfillment.

And then verse 16, some of you may have heard this verse before.

All scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for abuking,

for correcting, for training in righteousness.

Okay, all scripture is inspired by God.

Now, certainly this is talking about everything that we would call the Old Testament,

and certainly it's talking about what we would call the New Testament as well.

Now, whether the New Testament writers knew they were writing scripture,

what we would call the Bible today, I don't know the answer to that.

Some would argue that they did and give some scriptural support.

It's not strong one way or another.

Perhaps they knew. I don't know if they did or not.

I believe they certainly were inspired by God.

I think that they realized that the things they wrote were authoritative.

Whether or not they knew they were writing words that would be compiled into a book,

like what we call the Old Testament, I don't know.

But nonetheless, they were inspired by God.

When Paul writes this letter, he's inspired by God.

Maybe he knew that he was writing scripture that would be studied for years to come.

Maybe he was just writing a letter to Timothy and didn't think much about it.

But nonetheless, he knew that his words were authoritative,

and they certainly were from the Spirit of God, which is why we continue to read them today.

All scripture is inspired by God.

So none of the things that we read are manmade.

Praise the Lord, it'd be a mess.

If we just were reading stuff that was written and inspired by man,

it would be horrible.

But it's not.

It's written by man, but it's inspired by God.

It's the Spirit of God which guides these men in what needs to be written.

So all scripture is inspired by God, or all scripture is God-breathed,

and it's profitable.

Okay, praise the Lord.

Scripture is profitable.

If we want to seek to be rich, we need to seek to be rich in God's Word.

We always want to make a profit in this world.

Everything got to make a profit.

You want to start a business, you want to make a profit.

But the most profitable thing we have is to grow in the Word of God.

There is great profit there if we would listen to what it says.

So what does it say that the Word of God is profitable in?

It's profitable for teaching.

Okay, praise the Lord.

God's Word teaches us a lot of stuff.

It teaches us who God is.

It teaches us that God is the creator of the heavens of earth.

It teaches us that God loves us.

It teaches us that God sent His only begotten Son,

that whosoever believeth in Him shall not perish, but have everlasting life.

God's Word teaches us all kind of things,

and it is profitable for us if we would read and learn

and live by the things that God's Word teaches us.

God's Word is profitable for rebuking.

Okay, sometimes we're living our life in a way that is not good,

and we read Scripture, and Scripture says, this thing you are doing is wrong.

This thing you are doing is evil.

Or we look at passages like we looked at last week,

and we look at that long list of things it said about those evil folks.

And sometimes we look at that list and we say,

wait a minute, I'm doing some of the things on that list.

We don't want to think of ourselves as evil or sinful sometimes, but we are.

And so we read God's Word, we read things like the Proverbs,

and it says a fool does X, Y, and Z.

And then you look at yourself and you say, I do X, Y, and Z. Oh, no.

We realize that we're a fool, and so when we see God's Word,

it rebukes us sometimes.

It says you should not be living that way.

You should not be thinking that way.

You should not be acting that way.

That's why we need to read God's Word.

That's one of the things it does.

It teaches us, but it also rebukes us.

There are times that we need to be rebuked.

It's also profitable for correcting us.

Well, praise the Lord that it doesn't just leave us at a rebuke,

but it seeks to build us up.

It seeks to help us to be what we need to be, not just rebuking us,

but correcting us, helping us to see the right way to go so that we can live

in the correct way.

It doesn't just say you've sinned and leave it there.

It says you've sinned, but you need to repent.

You need to live in this way.

Here's what the Word of God says.

You see that a fool does X, Y, and Z.

Well, a man of wisdom does A, B, and C.

Don't live by X, Y, and Z. Live by A, B, and C.

And so God's Word is good at correcting us.

It doesn't just say you're a sinner and you're doomed.

Good luck.

It says, nope, you're a sinner, but here's the way that God wants you to live.

You need to repent.

You're going to die in your sin, but good news.

God sent Jesus Christ to die for your sin so that if you'll repent,

you'll have eternal life.

So God's Word is good.

So if we want to be taught, if we want to be rebuked,

if we want to be corrected, we don't want to be rebuked,

but we need to be rebuked so we can be corrected,

then how are we going to do that?

We're going to do that by studying the Word of God.

And it is profitable for training in righteousness.

Okay, so once we read the teaching of God's Word,

we begin to seek God.

It rebukes us.

God's Word begins to work in our life and correct us.

And then once we've repented of our sin and we trust in Jesus Christ,

God's Word begins to train us up for righteousness.

He helps us to grow in Him.

That's exactly what Paul is trying to do for Timothy here.

He's trying to train him up for righteousness.

He's trying to get him ready to fulfill his purpose,

to do what he's called to do.

And that's true for all of us.

God's Word is profitable for us.

The question is, are you reading God's Word?

And are you living by God's Word?

Now, there's a difference between reading God's Word

and living by God's Word.

There's times in my life that I've read God's Word,

and I don't live by God's Word.

You just mark it off the list.

It's like, oh, okay, I'm going to read through the Bible in a year.

Oh, I'm going to read five verses a day or a chapter a day.

And you can certainly read it and not live by it.

You can certainly read it and not get anything from it.

But if we want it to be profitable to us,

we have to read it, listen to it, and do what it says.

And that helps to train us up for righteousness.

And so God's Word is valuable.

It should be considered to us one of the most valuable things we have.

We should write God's Word on our heart.

We should be in God's Word.

And you might be amazed at how many times God will help you to recall the Scripture.

Even if you don't maybe remember it word for word,

you remember, wait a minute,

I remember that God's Word said something about this.

Maybe it's something that convicts us about what we're doing wrong.

Maybe it's something that encourages us in a time of need, whatever it may be.

The best thing we can do is to write God's Word on our heart.

We do that by reading God's Word.

It's God breathe that trains us up and helps us to be who we need to be.

So that, verse 17, so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good word.

So there's a purpose.

All Scripture is inspired by God to help us build us up for what purpose?

So that the man of God may be complete.

Well, that's the goal, is that we want to be complete.

How are we made complete?

Through Jesus Christ, through the Word of God.

And for what purpose?

Why is God doing this in us?

Why is he training us in righteousness?

Why is he trying to make us complete?

So that we will be equipped for every good word.

So if we want to do the work of God, if we want to be servants of God,

if we want to be obedient to God, then we need to be in the Word of God.

Now what about you and I tonight?

Do we want to do every good work that God has prepared for us?

Do we want to say, God, I want to be one who lives according to your purpose?

God, what is your purpose for me?

That's important that we recognize what God's purpose is,

because we come up with a lot of purposes that may or may not be good.

But what we need to think about is, God, what is your purpose for me?

Sometimes God's purposes for us are not our purposes.

But we need to see what God's purpose is for our life.

We need to seek the Word of God that it begins to work in our life,

that God can make us into the men and women that he wants us to be,

knowing that we will be equipped for every good word.

Isn't that a beautiful thing that God equips us?

God doesn't call those who are equipped.

God equips those that he calls.

So we don't have any excuses.

What we have to do is trust God and be in God's Word, and God will do the rest.

This is good advice for Timothy.

Timothy, don't follow the evil ways.

Look to the better examples you've seen.

Look to the Word of God and let God do the work in your life.

That's good advice for you and me tonight. Let's pray.

God, we thank you for your good Word.

I pray that we would grow in your Word.

I pray that we would listen to what your Word says,

that we would live by what your Word says.

God, I pray that you would help us to seek good examples in our life,

that we would look to those men and women who have lived their life

in a way that brings glory to you, that have been an example of faith and endurance,

that we would seek those people in our lives.

God, I pray that we would seek to be those people in our lives for somebody else, dear Lord,

that we take what we've learned from the generation that comes before us,

that we pass down faith and endurance and love and all of these same qualities, dear Lord,

to those who come after us.

So God, let us strive to be a good example in our conduct and in our faith

and in all the things that we do, dear Lord,

that we will be those who don't have to be ashamed about the way that we act.

Let us be those, dear Lord, who seek your Word.

Let it do a work in our life. Let us grow in it.

Let it correct us where we need to be corrected.

Let it give us joy where we need joy.

Let it give us help where we need help, dear Lord.

Let us give us hope where we need hope.

And I pray that we would grow to be the men and the women that you want us to be,

to be ready for the work that you call us to.

Help us to see those works that you put in our path, dear Lord,

that we can faithfully live them out.

And I ask these things in Jesus' name, Amen.