"Unchained" 2 Timothy 2:9 Sunday Morning Worship Service

If you would open your Bibles to the book of 2 Timothy, 2 Timothy chapter 2, verse 9.

2 Timothy 2:9

The second phrase in verse 9 is what we'll look at this morning.

I'll read for us verses 8 through 10.

2 Timothy 2, verse 9 will be our text, but I'll read verses 8 through 10.

2 Timothy 2:9

And as you're making your way there, I mean this is a verse that has long been a favorite verse of mine.

When people have asked what my favorite verse is, you know, I have a few that I cycle through, but this is one I often give.

But what's interesting in my heart about this verse, at least, I've never preached on it.

I've never preached through 2 Timothy.

I've never prepared a sermon on this verse.

It's just been a line I throw around to friends who some of them know where it's from, some don't, but it's uh in a in a very real sense, this verse is kind of kind of my motto in life.

And so I'm thankful to the Lord that He's given us an opportunity to pause our uh series on Ephesians and to spend some time encouraging us.

And this verse just fits so well, so well with what we're going through now.

2 Timothy chapter 2.

2 Timothy 2 · chapter mention

I'll read for us verses 8 through 10.

Paul says, This remember Jesus Christ, risen from the dead, the offspring of David, as preached in my gospel, for which I'm suffering, bound with chains as a criminal, but the word of God is not bound.

Therefore, I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory.

Most of our congregation is bound up this week, practically under lock and key.

Okay, we're not locked down by lock and key, but by the unapproving glances of our neighbors, which is just as effective as a lock and key.

We can't go to work.

We can't do small groups, we can't meet for men's Bible study Tuesday morning, Tuesday evening.

The women's ministries have been canceled.

Door-to-door evangelism is on pause.

Soccer is canceled.

Swim is canceled.

Spring training is canceled for those that went down to Florida to watch that.

Prom at some high schools is canceled.

Work is canceled.

Productivity is banned.

But you know what isn't canceled?

Is the power of the word of God.

True religion isn't canceled because God's word is always at work in people's hearts.

True religion is wherever the affections of God's people grow hot with love for the Lord through his written word.

That's where religion is.

That's where the power of the gospel is.

When God's people love him more, when they grow in their affections for him, and that is always fueled by the word of God.

And the word of God can never be constrained.

That's Paul's point there in verse 9.

He is suffering.

He is bound with chains as a criminal, he says, but the word of God is not bound.

The most effective missionary the church has ever known is in jail.

And he says that's not going to slow him down one bit.

There's an outrageous contrast in verse 9.

When Paul is most constrained by the gospel, the power of the word of God is most evident.

That's the contrast.

The more chains are on Paul, the tighter the chains are around his wrist, the more the power of the Word of God is magnified.

The stronger the word is shown to be by the more constraints that are put on the messenger.

It's not just that Paul is imprisoned, but the Word of God isn't.

It's more profound in that.

It's that Paul's lack of freedom highlights, magnifies, intensifies the freedom of God's word.

When we are most impotent, God is most potent.

That's his point here.

Now the word criminal that he uses to describe himself, it's a word that's used only one other place in the New Testament.

That's Luke's gospel to describe the arrest and trial and execution of Jesus Christ.

Certainly the tables have turned on Paul.

Paul enters the pages of Scripture.

You're introduced to him in the book of Acts.

You find him on the way, on the road to Damascus, to put Christians in chains.

That's his goal.

He is on his way to persecute Christians.

That's how you meet the Apostle Paul in the Bible.

Your introduction to him is that he wants to put Christians in jail.

Here, the book of 2 Timothy is Paul's last book in the Bible.

He exits Scripture stage right through this book.

And this is why I say the tables have turned.

You meet him persecuting Christians.

He ends his time in Scripture, the recipient of that persecution.

Paul is wearing the very chains that he'd wanted to put on others.

And now he realizes the truth that all of the readers knew when Stephen was put to death, and Paul was a witness to it back in Acts chapter 8.

Acts 8 · chapter mention

All of the readers of Scripture know this truth, and Paul's learning it right here.

The more severe the persecution on believers, the more rapid the gospel spreads.

Now, this truth has, of course, played out in church history.

If you read the stories of the missionary endeavors, the what's called the Korean Pentecost, all the persecution that came in South Korea just led to the expansion of the gospel.

Iran has experienced that in the last few decades.

China in the last 50 years.

Obviously, the Roman Empire in the history of the church.

The more severe the persecution, the more rapid the gospel spreads.

And that's because you can't imprison God's word.

You can round Christians up, you can throw them in jail, you can wait ten years, and the quarantine doesn't work.

I mean, that's the whole idea behind our own self-imposed quarantine right now, right?

You lock people away in their houses for two weeks, you don't let them interact with others, and then the virus will, you know, in theory, would have been impossible to spread.

What's interesting is that the Bible doesn't work that way.

You can lock every Christian in the world up.

Keep them in isolation.

Don't let them say a word to anybody else for two weeks.

And when the doors are opened, you will find that the gospel has only spread because the word of God cannot be chained.

I mean, think about how this impacts believers.

I was lamenting on Monday when the governor said that churches couldn't meet together.

I was walking around church like a Christian Eeyore this week.

People who work here will vouch for the integrity of that description.

But then as the week goes on, it just sets in my heart more and more the remarkable opportunity this has to demonstrate the freedom of God's word.

There's a great temptation in churches to view that the power of the church or the efficacy of the gospel comes forward through what is produced, the production, what is put on on Sundays.

And that, of course, isn't true.

We all know that's not true theologically.

We all know that the power of the gospel isn't seen in what is happening in the church for, you know, four hours on a Sunday morning.

We all know the power of the gospel is the affections of the love of the Lord in people's heart fueled by his word.

That's true.

And what a remarkable opportunity to deepen our understanding of that that this lockdown puts us on.

And you understand this lockdown has a serious effect on the world, on businesses, businesses that close.

I know several business owners that are believers that are having to shut their businesses, declare bankruptcy, lay off their employees.

For you know, one that strikes me, you maybe saw the news yesterday, the great American restaurant, Silverado, Mike, all that, laying off all 1,700 of their workers.

They can't do their job, they can't show up to work, they can't get paid.

This affects movie theater, shopping, even government work.

I know governor government workers that can't go to work.

Some military work is curtailed, some military operations are being scaled back, schools are closed.

What a contrast with the word of God.

When we don't go to work, the word of God still goes to work every morning.

The word of God still goes out and is productive.

He still goes out and does his business and makes a profit.

The word of God always has a return on his investment.

This is 1 Samuel 3, verse 19.

1 Samuel 3:19

Yahweh was with Samuel, and none of his words fell to the ground.

Because God was with Samuel, every word that Samuel said, none of them fell to the ground unproductive.

They all produced what they were designed to do.

The phrase that Paul uses in verse 9, for the word of God.

It's a phrase that's used 40 times in the New Testament.

And it always refers to the totality of God's word.

It doesn't refer to one word given to one person here or there.

It doesn't refer to the gift of prophecy or an insight that Paul might have from the Lord.

No, this word only refers to Scripture in its totality.

And it can't be chained.

It's not just that it can't be chained.

It's not just that it never fails.

It's that it is actually productive.

It is actually profitable.

This is what Isaiah says, Isaiah chapter 55, verses 10 through 11.

Isaiah 55:10–11

He says, For as the rain and snow come down from heaven and do not return there, but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater.

Look at all those productive words right there.

As rain comes down, it grows.

It gives seed and it gives bread to the eater.

It's seed for the sower to sow, bread for the eater to eat.

So shall my word be that goes out from my mouth, Isaiah says.

God's word never returns void.

It doesn't matter how much persecution is on believers, it doesn't matter what constraints in our own personal life, it doesn't matter what kind of lockdown we are under for health reasons, the messengers may be silenced, the messengers may be locked in their homes, but the word of God is the message, and it cannot be constrained.

And so the question is, what makes the word of God so different?

Why is the Bible so different than every other book, than every other form of communication, than every other enterprise?

You know, some businesses are moving on online.

My daughters are doing their taekwondo class through Zoom right now.

It's adorable.

Is the Bible different than that?

You know, we're doing church this morning through through live stream, but I'm I'm telling you, it's not just an issue of the medium where you're online or you're streamed or whatever.

The word of God is fundamentally different than even that.

The word of God goes forward into the world.

Even in a world without live stream, when churches can't meet, the word of God is still effective.

It is just categorically and fundamentally different than every other medium of communication, every other book ever written.

And that's why it cannot be changed.

And I want to give you three reasons from 2 Timothy this morning why that is true.

First reason, the word of God cannot be bound, it cannot be chained because it is indispensable.

It is indispensable.

And I don't just mean indispensable from your own perspective like you really need it for life.

I mean the word of God is indispensable from God's perspective.

We were made to know God.

This is the very basic thrust of the scripture.

It's the first question of the catechism.

It's all theology begins there.

All theology starts with the question: why did God make the worlds?

Why did he make us?

Why did God make the universe?

And the answer is so that we would know him.

That we would know him.

And he made us for the purpose of revealing himself to him, not because he's an egomaniac, but because he is so philanthropic, he is so rich, he is so abounding in grace and mercy and kindness and love and joy and fellowship that it's desirous of him to share it.

Because of his wealth, he creates people that he can share himself with.

That's the very foundation of all theology.

Theology begins with understanding that God made all of us so that he can share himself with us.

And he shares himself with us by sharing the knowledge of himself with us.

This is the point here in verse 8 that we're supposed to remember Jesus Christ, who is resurrected from the dead.

He's the offspring of David.

To use Jesus' own language, he's David's son and David's Lord.

We must know that.

Therefore, Paul says, I pursue all of this for the sake of the elect, that they may obtain salvation through Christ Jesus with eternal glory.

Notice that Paul is tethering here the effectiveness of the Word of God to the eternal glory of God's own character.

God made us so that we would know his glory.

Now, how do you know God's glory?

That's the million-dollar question here.

How do you know God's glory?

How do you encounter it?

There's really only one answer to that.

You know God's glory through his word.

We are not God.

So we have to learn about God from God.

Everything in the universe fits very nicely into two categories: God and not God.

That's the totality of the universe right there.

There is God who makes the universe.

He's the creator.

He's not a creature, he's the creator, and then there's everything else that is made by him.

There's no middle grounds.

And so for any creature, anybody who is made to know anything about God, it has to be revealed to them by God.

There is no other way to learn about God than his own revelation.

You weren't there when he made the world.

You can't ascend on your own effort to heaven to learn about God.

You can't get there yourself.

You can't find him, you can't seek him out.

You cannot encounter him.

He must reveal himself to you.

I mean, think of it this way: if God didn't reveal himself to you, how could you learn about him?

Where would you go?

Where would you find him?

There's nowhere to begin a search, there's nowhere to end a search because he is not part of this creation.

He's above us and beyond us.

If he just created the universe and stepped away, the universe would have no means by which to discover him.

But God didn't do that.

He created the universe, and he speaks into it.

And he speaks into it by giving us his word.

Moses in Deuteronomy 30, verse 12, mocks the very idea of those that can ascend to heaven to discover God on their own.

Deuteronomy 30:12

Moses is underscoring the whole importance of the old covenant that God gave Israel by asking the question: who can ascend to heaven for us and bring it to us that we may hear it and do it?

For those that say we don't need God's word, we can figure out God's will on our own.

Moses says, How?

Are you going to go to heaven and ask him?

How are you going to get there?

And then how are you going to get back?

No, God created the world so that we can enjoy him and glorify him, and we do that through learning his word that he gives us.

This is why I say God's word is indispensable.

If you, brothers and sisters, if you believe that God created the world for you to know him, then you have to believe that God's word is essential.

It's an essential part.

It's the very foundation of who you are and why you were made.

It's his self-revelation.

This is why the theme of the word echoes through the Bible.

The Bible begins with God speaking.

Do you understand the significance of that?

He creates the universe and he does so by speaking.

In other words, the very act of creation comes from God's disclosure of himself.

His words have creative power.

His words shatter the nothingness that existed in Genesis 1, verse 1, and it brings creation into being.

Genesis 1:1

His words are light that fill the dark void that was described in Genesis 1, and it fills the void with illumination, with light, with earth, with animals.

That's his word that is at work.

Knowledge of God is essential because it doesn't just bring light to the world, but it brings knowledge of that life.

So God speaks, bringing life and light, and the creation happens.

God speaks, and the universe is literally made by words, the life-giving words of revelation.

But God is not content just to create the universe.

He creates it and then begins revealing himself immediately.

He's walking in the garden, communicating with Adam and Eve.

He speaks to Abraham and tells him what to do.

He speaks to the patriarchs and tells them where to go.

And then all this culminates in the book of Exodus, where God summons Moses up and gives him revelation and tells him the truth about the creation.

Gives him his word so that God's people can know his nature.

You know, we're different, but we, I mean human beings, are different than animals for a huge reason.

Namely, we can speak, we have language, we have the ability to use words as tools to make them, to make knowledge with them, and then to build empires with that knowledge and pass down that knowledge to other generations.

Reservoirs of knowledge that we can pass to our children through words, where our children don't have to rediscover the laws of physics, they don't have to rediscover beautiful plays and poetry and write them all for themselves.

They can inherit them from us.

We give them to them through the cat through the knowledge and the potency of words.

You know, everything you do in life, it will all die, it will all be forgotten, except words.

Anything that's remembered about you is remembered through words.

They have just infinite weight.

The amount of ink it takes to make a word is so small.

And yet the power of what that word represents and how it can be passed down, it's it's infinite.

You get a new project, you take it out of the box, a new board game, you read the directions.

The power of the game is seen in its words.

This is true in every category of life, from science to philosophy to literature.

It's intrinsically based upon the power of words.

And of course, the highest of all these is theology, the knowledge of God, the love of God.

And it hinges on how God reveals himself through his word.

I was reading a book by Eugene Peterson this week, rereading a book.

It's one of my favorites.

I've read it many times.

And he hasn't there this line that has always grabbed my mind.

He marvels at the knowledge of God is contained in such a brittle and fragile vessel as consonants and vowels.

That you can know the infinite beauty and majesty of God, but only through something as small and as really fickle as letters.

That's what's behind Jesus when he says, not a ji or a tittle, not the smallest part of the Hebrew language will disappear before God has completed all of his words.

God didn't give us pictures of himself.

He doesn't invite us one at a time up to heaven to see what he's like and come back to earth to teach others.

He doesn't send angels to us to describe what he's like.

He doesn't give us dreams and visions that teach us about him.

God reveals himself to us in one way, and that one way is his word.

It's his word.

Even those that had an encounter with Jesus face to face say this.

This is what Peter says: that he was brought up to the Mount of Transfiguration, he saw Jesus transfigured and in his heavenly glory in front of his face, and he says, all this had the effect of making God's word more sure to me.

It's an incredible thing to say.

God doesn't give us a movie about himself, he gave us a book.

God didn't write his own nature in the stars for us to design what God is like from interpreting the stars, although there's no shortage of pagan religions that think that.

They're looking in the wrong place.

The meaning of life isn't found in the stars, but it's found in a book.

Others look for meaning inside of themselves.

But the truth is not inside of us.

The truth is in a book, it's contained in words.

God didn't download it into our heads either.

He gives it to us through words that we study and read and learn.

I even think about the nature of Islam.

You know, Islam teaches that Muhammad went into a cave for a series of visions, which he then memorized.

And at the end of his life, he prohibited anybody else from writing them down.

He forbid the Quran from being written down.

It had to be similarly memorized, and he was the one with the infallible copy in his own imagination, in his own mind.

Of course, the problem with that is when he dies, the words die with him if they're in his mind, if they're not written down.

The Bible is so different from that.

It didn't come through those kind of visions or dreams.

It itself is a window into heaven.

You want to know what God is like, you look at this book.

In my room.

My favorite gift my wife has given me is.

For anniversary one year, we have four pictures taken out our our back door of our backyard in the four different seasons.

One in fall with the brilliantly colored leaves, one in the winter, and it's snow everywhere, one in the spring, and you see the bright flowers and the trees, and one in the summer, which is green and jungle out in our backyard, and we have them together on our wall in our bedroom.

However, when it is fall, and I want to see how beautiful our yard is, I don't look at the picture on the wall.

I can look out the window and see what how beautiful it is in the fall.

When it's spring, I mean you just think how beautiful the cherry blossoms are in bloom right now.

I don't need to look at the picture on our wall to see how beautiful they are.

I can look out the window and see them.

This is what the Bible is.

The Bible isn't a picture of God's glory on the wall, it is the window into heaven itself.

If you want to know what God is like, you look into his word.

It is the way he is given to reveal himself to us.

This is why it is so silly when I hear people say, Oh, the Bible is a powerful book of literature.

Incredible writing, that book, you know.

I went to a public high school and I had to read, I had to read the book of Job.

Before I was a Christian in my public high school, Del Norte High School, Albuquerque, New Mexico, uh, we called it the book of Job.

We didn't know better.

And I read it, it was supposed to be a demonstration of the beauty of literature and writing.

I didn't understand, I don't think, a word of it, at least in my my memory of those years in high school.

How silly is it?

How silly is it to say the Bible is just a collection of good writing.

That's like telling Shakespeare, hey, let me give you a good comment about Romeo and Juliet Shakespeare.

Your handwriting is just excellent.

It's just excellent.

The point is that the Bible is an essential window into God.

Not that it's beautiful literature, but it's the window by which you see God.

And so God is never going to allow that window to be closed.

The Bible is indispensable.

Not only is it indispensable, but secondly, it is inspired.

It's inspired.

Now the word inspiration just means all that God has breathed life into it.

That's what the word inspired means.

Flip over to 2 Timothy chapter 3, verse 16, on the next page in my Bible, chapter 3, verse 16, all scripture is breathed out by God.

2 Timothy 3:16

That word breathed out is theonumatas.

It just means that God is breathing his spirit into it, that God breathes life into it.

This is the same description of what happened to Adam in the garden, that Adam was made out of dirt and God breathed life into him.

God breathes his life into his word.

His word is living and active because it is inspired.

God gives his word life.

Every word of the Bible is inspired from the throne room of heaven, which is another way of saying that every word of the Bible reveals the heart of God Himself.

And like everything that is from God, it is good and perfect.

James chapter 1 teaches that.

James 1 · chapter mention

Every good and perfect gift comes from above, from the Father of light, with whom there's no variation or no shifting of shadows.

This is what it means that the Bible is inspired.

Nobody made this book up.

Nobody made this up.

It's not cleverly invented tales passed on through generations.

That would be impossible.

It is inspired truth from the throne room of God.

And I can demonstrate that in a very basic way.

The Bible is written across thousands of years, thousands of years.

From the book of Genesis given in the Torah, the first five books of the Bible being revealed together.

And the last book of the Bible, Revelation, thousands of years go by.

In between, you have books of the Bible written on three different continents, at least six different kingdoms: Egypt, Israel, Judah, Babylon, Persia, and Rome.

And you can probably count the reconstituted Israel as another kingdom.

That would get you seven if you count it that way.

It's, you know, Revelation is written from an island in exile.

Jonah writes from Nineveh.

Some of the books of the Bible are written by a prophet in hiding, others from a Pharaoh to be in the wilderness.

Warriors, kings, shepherds, powerful, powerless, pastors and fishermen, kings and priests.

And yet it has no contradictions in it.

It is one theme with a unified story and one theology.

Do you appreciate for a second how impossible that is?

Two Americans can't agree on a recipe for grits.

Two witnesses both describe a car accident differently.

There was a car accident on Braddock not too long ago at Montgomery over there, where there's an accident, it seems like every other day.

And it happened right in front of me, and I stopped, and a couple other people stopped and saw the accident, and the first police officer gets there, and he asks the two people what happened, and their two stories were totally contradictory to each other.

That's normal in our world.

Later I got to talk to the police officer about that.

And he told me, you know, just as a rule of thumb with car accidents, we don't really listen to eyewitnesses anyway.

We write them down for the insurance companies.

It's not like we believe what they actually say.

People are not reliable witnesses.

They can't agree on anything.

And yet, here in this book, you have 40 different authors from several different millennia, and they agree on the details as something not as trivial as a car accident, but they agree on the details of something as incomprehensible as the nature of God.

And how can that be?

And the answer is simple because the Bible is inspired by God.

Every word comes from Him.

Each book in the Bible maintains the author's personality and life experiences, but each book is inspired by God.

So God wants to write a morose book of poetry.

God creates a Jeremiah to write it, and then God gives Jeremiah the words.

Every word of lamentations is from Jeremiah's own pen and Jeremiah's own life experiences, Jeremiah's own mind, but every word is inspired from God.

God wants to write a sage book of wisdom, he makes a Solomon and then declares that Solomon will be the wisest person ever.

So that every word of Proverbs is inspired by Solomon.

Every word of the Song of Solomon is inspired, written by Solomon's mind, written by Solomon's heart, but fueled and inspired and brought to life from the very words in the throne room of heaven.

God wants a simple gospel with elementary language and Jewish Greco themes.

God makes a John, a fisherman who writes in clear language that even a first-year baby Greek student can read.

And then God wants a more educated, technical, detailed account of the life of Christ in the early church.

He makes a Luke and has him write his books, both of which are filled with details about the life of Christ in the early church, every word of which is Luke's, every word of which is from the throne room of God, and that's how it does not contradict John's gospel.

They have the same divine author.

Such is true with every book of the Bible.

That's why the Bible is living and active, because every word is God's word.

And he breathes life into those words.

So do you understand how foolish it would be to think that you can stop the gospel from going into the world by chaining the Bible, by constraining the messengers.

Because it's alive.

It alone, it is the only living and active book in the universe.

And so it cannot be chained.

And thirdly, the Bible is indispensable, the Bible is inspired.

The third reason it can't be changed is because it is inerrant.

Inerrant simply means that it is true in every part, in every detail, the Bible is inerrant.

You can flip back to chapter 2.

Only this time look at chapter 2, verse 15.

Do your best to present yourself to God as a worker who is approved, who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling in this phrase right here, the word of truth.

The Bible is the word of truth.

If every syllable, I want you to see how these are connected.

If God makes the world to reveal himself and he reveals himself through the Bible, then every word of the Bible is going to be inspired because it's coming from heaven to earth.

If every word of the Bible is inspired, it follows that every word of the Bible will be inerrant.

It won't have flaws in it.

It won't be wrong.

It'll be true and it'll be trustworthy.

And that's why Paul can call it the word of truth.

Nothing else is the word of truth.

Imagine holding up a newspaper and saying this is the word of truth.

Imagine holding up even a book of fiction and saying this is the word of truth.

Imagine even holding up a book of nonfiction.

Winston Churchill is the most, has written more words in the English language than any other author.

Most of it nonfiction, most of it personal accounts of the several wars he fought in, but none of which you would hold up and say, This is infallible.

Of course not.

The Bible alone is infallible.

It's not capable of error because it comes from God Himself.

And that's why every word must be believed.

This is what Proverbs 30, verse 5 says, when it says, every word of God is tested.

Proverbs 30:5

Or Psalm 119, your word is pure.

It is silver tried in a furnace on earth, refined seven times, the psalmist says.

Seven times.

That means that any impurity is driven out of it.

When you refine something, you're exposing it to heat and pressure and tension, so that the impurities rise and are taken out of it.

That's how you refine silver, that's how you refine gold.

The psalmist's point in Psalm 119 is that every word of God is incredibly pure.

There's no impurity in it.

If this book was man's opinion, then it could be constrained.

Man's opinion can be it can go this way and that so quickly, so quickly.

If this book was politically correct, subject to the winds of culture, it could be quarantined.

If this book was the product of man's education, it could be improved upon.

Of course.

If this book depended on the educational level of its authors, people can always learn more so it could be improved.

But none of those things are true of the Bible, because it is not man's opinion, it is not politically correct, it is not the product of man's education, it is pure, high dosage truth.

And so Jesus can say in John 17, 17, your word is truth.

That's what Paul means in 2 Timothy 2, verse 18.

2 Timothy 2:18

When he says that there are some, look at the phrase in verse 18, who have swerved from the truth.

It means they've left God's word.

Or verse 25, he says, you correct the false teachers by bringing them back to the truth.

That's the point.

The word truth, by the way, it just means things as they really are.

Pilate's question is such a ridiculous question, isn't it?

What is truth?

Come on.

You're a judge, is what Jesus said.

I feel like Jesus should have said that.

You're a judge and you don't know what truth is.

Yikes.

Truth is things as they really are.

And people are so bad at truth because they see things from their own perspective and their own lens, they don't have a good gauge on what is true.

But God, who creates all things and is sovereign over all things and sees all things, he defines what is true.

Something is true in as much as it corresponds to him and his nature.

And since every word of God is from him, it's all true.

Titus 1, verse 2 says that God cannot lie.

Titus 1:2

And so, of course, his word would be true.

This is a book that is filled with truth.

That does not mean, that does not mean.

I would say don't come up and ambush me in the hallway afterwards with this, but I think I'm safe on that today.

It does not mean there's not difficulties in the Bible.

It does not mean that there's not, you know, one gospel writer describes the robe that was put on Jesus' head as purple and another scarlet.

Aha, contradiction.

It doesn't mean there's not those kind of difficulties, and there's a very easy answer for that one along with other ones.

Ask them in the hallway afterwards if you want the answer for that one.

It doesn't mean there's not difficulties.

It doesn't mean you can't spend your lifetime studying it.

Of course you can spend your lifetime studying it.

It's not a stream of truth that you can skip over.

It's an ocean of truth that you can drown in.

You can spend your whole life studying it and still learn more and more.

It's simple enough a child can read it and believe it and understand it.

It's complex enough that theology majors can always keep learning.

The point is, because it's a book of truth, it's inerrant, you will never be wrong.

Listen carefully.

You will never be wrong if you believe this book.

And this book goes counter to so many things that you want to do in life.

You have desires for what you want to do in life, and this book says no, that's sin.

You'll never be wrong if you side with this book.

There's things that you love in this world that the Bible declares as sin.

You will never be wrong if you leave those loves behind and just love this book instead.

You will never be powerless, is Paul's point in chapter 2, verse 9.

You will never be powerless if you possess this book.

You can be locked down, locked out, chained in, or held back.

And it's no difference to the power of your life in this world because your power comes through this book, which is eminent, it is powerful, it is transcendent, it is near, it is out there, and it is living and active.

As a result, Paul says in verse 10 that he is willing.

Just look at the look at the kind of life that comes from believing this.

He says, I endure everything for the sake of the elect.

He's speaking here of people that God has chosen for salvation who don't yet know the gospel.

That's the category he's talking about here.

There are people in the world that do not at this moment know the gospel, but God has chosen them for salvation.

They don't know that because they haven't heard of Jesus yet.

That's the category he's talking about here.

And he says, I will endure everything for their sake, so that they may obtain salvation that is in Jesus Christ with eternal glory.

I mean, what's incredible about this is that Paul's ministry has been kneecapped, handicapped.

Even when he was put in prison, remember at the end of his life, at the end of the book of Acts, he was sitting on his porch and just speaking to the crowds from his house.

They finally got sick of that and threw him in a deeper cell.

He has no way to communicate to the world.

That's why he's begging Timothy in 2 Timothy, bring me my books, give me something to do here, give me and a jacket.

I mean, it's so it's so sad how this book ends.

He wants his books and he wants a jacket before he freezes to death, and they eventually kill him.

And yet he's so hopeful because God has chosen people for salvation, and he knows the word of God is going to do its work.

His confidence comes from verse 8, right before verse 9.

Remember Jesus Christ.

You know, Jesus Christ, that was a whole philosophy with Jesus.

He arrives and says, He's God, he's a long-awaited Savior, the long-expected Messiah.

Here he is, God in human flesh.

And what do they do?

They first ignore him, then they try to silence him, then they condemn him, finally they arrest him and execute him and decide to persecute his followers into oblivion.

Does that work?

And the answer is no.

The more they persecuted him, the more quickly the gospel spread.

Hey, if anything, you read the beginning of the book of Acts, and all the Christians were hanging out in their house together, scared of going into the world, and persecution lit their feet on fire and sent them out in the world.

And God still works the same way today.

How can Paul have this confidence in the Word of God?

Because Paul has seen a heart change.

Paul looked at Jesus Christ, heard his ministry, knew of his death and his resurrection, did not believe it, and then had his heart changed by God, who drastically and radically intervened in his life, opened up his eyes to the truth.

He did a 180 on the road to persecuting Christians, comes back to study under Christians, gets sent out as a missionary by Christians, and ends his life serving Christians by begging us to have confidence in the truth of the gospel.

Don't love the things of this world.

Love Jesus Christ.

Don't trust the things of the world.

Trust Jesus Christ.

And how do you love Jesus and trust him?

By throwing your heart into his word.

Says that this lockdown run now should last eight weeks.

One week down, seven to go.

But you know what?

The word of God will not be changed for one moment of that time.

Lord, we're thankful that you have given us your word.

It is living and active, sharper than a two-edged sword.

It's trustworthy.

It's powerful.

And it goes into the world to change lives.

So, Lord, fuel our own love for the gospel with the potency of your word.

I pray for anyone who is watching this, that doesn't know you, that has never trusted your word, that fancies themselves as a judge of the truth of your word, as a judge of the truth of you and your character.

I pray that through understanding the nature of your word, they would humble themselves, they were would repent from their arrogance and repent from their thinking that they're the arbiter of truth and would submit themselves to your word.

We're thankful, Lord Jesus, that you died for sinners, that you were David's son and David's Lord, that you come from heaven and you bring us back to heaven with you.

Lord, we give our lives to you.

Though this world perish, we know your word never will.

Even so, Lord Jesus, come quickly, we pray.

Amen.

Thank you for being with us today.

And now a parting word from Pastor Jesse.

If you have any questions about what you heard today, or if you want to learn more about what it means to follow Christ, please visit our church website, emmanuelbible.church.

If you're not a member of a local church and you live in the Washington, D.C.

area, we'd love to have you worship with us here at Emmanuel.

I hope to personally meet you this Sunday after our service.

But no matter where you live, it's our hope that everyone who uses this resource is involved in their own local church.

Now may God bless you this week as you seek Jesus constantly, serve the Lord faithfully, and share the gospel boldly.