re:FORMED - God Speaks - The Authority of Scripture - 2 Timothy 3:14-17

You're listening to City Church Manchester. We are a church that invites

everyone to enjoy Christ for the glory of God. If we can serve you in any way

then visit our website at citychurchmanchester.org to find out more.

My words reading from today is from 2nd Timothy chapter 3 from 13 to 17 so verse

12. In fact everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be

persecuted while evildoers and imposters will go from bad to worse

deceiving and being deceived. But as for you continue in what you have learned

and have become convinced of because you know those whom you learned it and how

from infancy you have known the Holy Scriptures which are able to make you

wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All scripture is God

breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in

righteousness so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every

good work. May the Lord bless the reading and hearing of his word. Well good

afternoon everyone. Welcome my name is Ralph I'm one of the pastors here at

City and it is my pleasure to be able to start this new series looking at what it

means for us to be a reformed church. So let us bow our heads and let us pray

together. We have just sung where else can we go Lord where else can we go you

Lord have the words of eternal life. That is true. Where else can we go except to

you alone and we pray that as we turn to your word today that we would experience

exactly that by the power of your spirit that here we might find the words of

eternal life. Amen. Well as Matt explained over the next four weeks we're going to

be doing something a little bit different because we're having a series

looking at just one of our church values. Our values at City Church they're like

the DNA of the church. They're the genetic code that you'll find written

into every bit of what the church is and taken together they spell out the word

gear. Okay that's a way to to easily remember it gear. So the first three of

our church values they're pretty simple. The G stands for gospel driven. The E

stands for excellence. We want to do things excellently because we serve a

God who has given his very excellent best for us in Jesus Christ. And the A

stands for accessible. We want to be as accessible as possible for a diverse

group of people. So far so good yeah pretty straightforward. But our fourth

value is a bit more tricky. The R stands for reformed. Now what on earth does that mean?

Well let me put it this way. City Church is quite a new church. We were

only started eight and a half years ago and as a new church we do lots of things

differently. We try things that churches have never tried before. But there is one

thing at City Church which is definitely not new. What we believe. We believe as a

church what Christians have believed down through the centuries and when we

say that we are reformed what we're doing is we're positioning ourselves

within a certain historical line of belief. We're saying that we believe the

same things as the reformers believed back in the 16th century. That those men

and women whose religious revolution turned the world upside down and gave us

most of the things that we most value in the Western world today. But it doesn't

stop there. We don't just believe the same things as the 16th century reformers.

You see those 16th century reformers they weren't claiming to have discovered

new truths. Rather they claimed that they had rediscovered old truths. Truth that

had been lost when the church in Rome decided to turn from what the Bible

taught and to instead trust in the traditions of men. So when we claim to

be reformed we're standing in the tradition of people like John Calvin and

John Knox but it doesn't stop there. It goes all the way back to Augustine in

the 5th century, Athanasius in the 4th century, Irenaeus in the 2nd century

and right back to the Apostles themselves. That is the claim when we say

that we want to be a reformed church. In other words if you want to understand

what this means simply it means this. You will never hear a new thing taught at

City Church. You will never hear a new thing taught at City Church. Nothing that

Matt or I say up here will be novel or original or new. Now what we are seeking

to do is take the truth that Christians have taught and believed down through the

centuries and apply it to our very different world today. But I guess we

probably want to know what are the specifics of reformed teaching that

we're talking about here. Well over the next four weeks we're going to focus on

four specifics. How God speaks through the Bible, how God saves through sovereign

grace, how God transforms through Christians seeking the prosperity of

their city and then how God orders through complementarity. So first up

today how God speaks and our passage today 2nd Timothy chapter 3 verse 14 to

17 tells us this. Let's get our bearings of where we are in in the Bible. In 2nd

Timothy Paul is writing to his young apprentice Timothy and chapter 4 of the

letter suggests that Paul is facing imminent execution. So these are very

probably Paul's last words to Timothy which means they're important. Just

before the passage we had read Paul warned Timothy against the danger of

false teachers verse 2 of chapter 3. Don't be like them Paul warns chapter 3

verse 10. Don't be like them. You are to be different. Follow me Paul says not

them and that will mean verse 14 sticking with the Word of God. Now we're

going to unpack these verses today by asking two simple questions. This is it

this is really straightforward. Two simple questions. What is the Bible and

what does the Bible do? That's it. What is the Bible and what does the Bible do? So

first up what is the Bible? Verse 16 tells us it says that all scripture is

God-breathed. Now the Greek word used there in the original, theonevmatos

literally means God-spirated. God-spirated. Some older translations

like the old King James Version read all scripture is given by the inspiration of

God but that doesn't quite do the original justice. You see it's not that

God inspired the writing of the Bible like I inspired my daughter Sophie and

her brilliant artwork for GCSE. That's not quite what's being said here. It's

more than that. What Paul is saying here is that the words of the Bible were

literally breathed out by God. Just as these words you're hearing hitting your

ear drums right now are breathed out by my mouth so the words of scripture were

breathed out of God. These words we have here in the Bible in our hands today

they are God's words breathed out of his mouth. They were put down on

paper on papyri in fact by human authors and yes they bear the marks of their

human authorship with 40 different writers across three continents across

1,500 years writing in three different languages. That's why within this book we

have lots of different grammar and syntax and style and genre but from

beginning to end all of it is God's own words.

I guess it begs the question what's this the scriptures but what are the

scriptures here that Paul is talking about? I think Paul is talking about two

different things here. He's first of all talking in verse 14 about what Timothy

had learned from Paul himself. You see Paul had seen the risen Jesus. He'd been

taught by Jesus one-on-one and as a result Paul ended up writing almost half

the books we find in our New Testaments today and Paul is saying here remember

the good news about Jesus that you learned from me Timothy. That's what he's

saying in verse 14 but remember also verse 14 what you learned from your mum

Eunice and your grandma Lois, two women were told about in chapter one of the

letter. Remember Timothy what they taught you when you were a tiny boy they taught

you verse 15 the holy scriptures. That's the Old Testament that's the

books from Genesis through to Malachi. So the scripture that Paul is talking

about in verse 16 that is all God-breathed that is the Old Testament

writings yes but it is also the New Testament writings as well. It is all 66

books of the Old and New Testament combined. The whole Bible is the very

word of God. Now that has two crucial implications for us today. Two things

that lie at the heart of what it means when we say that we are reformed as a

church. Firstly it means that the Bible has authority. The Bible has authority.

This was so so important at the time the Reformation in 16th century. You see for

the past 1,000 years the church in Rome had been a massing power for itself. It

had built up a body of church tradition. They called it the Magisterium and that

was authoritative on how Christians were to live in the church. Now it wasn't that

the church denied the Bible was its authority. What the church in Rome did

instead was to put the Bible on the same level as its own tradition its own

interpretations of the Bible. So it meant that they had the Bible on one hand and

they had the bishop and the Pope's interpretation of it on the other and they

said we hold both as being authoritative. Neither one is sovereign over the other.

They're equal. The only problem of course is that that made church tradition

authoritative. In fact it made the Pope's interpretation of Scripture

authoritative. Why? Well because if the Bible and someone's interpretation of

the Bible are equally authoritative then inevitably the person's interpretation

of the Bible will trump the Bible itself.

Because the person's interpretation can change while the Bible is fixed, static,

complete. Do you see? That's why the Pope in the 16th century was able to develop

his despicable practice of indulgences to fund the building of St. Peter's

Basilica in Rome. He told naive church members all around Europe that if they

gave their money into his building funds then they can free their loved ones out

of the chains of purgatory. It was a devilish thing to teach but he could say

it because he said what I say is on a level with what the scriptures say. And

that sort of false teaching that adding to the Bible it is inevitable if we

deny the supreme authority of the scriptures. Scripture and Scripture alone

has authority in the church because Scripture and Scripture alone is God's

Word. Well what does that mean for us today? When you come here on a Sunday I

hope I hope you keep your Bibles open or your Bible app open on your phones when

you come and listen to me preach. I hope you do because my words they are not

God's words and you need to check everything that I say against what you

find here in the Bible. If it doesn't line up then you do not need to listen.

It can go one ear in and another ear out and that is fine. But if it does line up

with what we find here in the Bible you better listen because God himself is

speaking to you personally here and now. It's why Bible teaching is absolutely

central to everything we do at City Church whether it be here on a Sunday

whether it be a midweek in a quip whether it be on our weekends away or in

our elders meeting. The Bible is always central because you know who leads City

Church. It's not me and Matt and Eric. It's not even the other elders. It's not

even you yourselves as members who lead City Church. No the one who leads City

Church is God himself as he speaks through his Word in the scriptures. This

is it. This is why it is taught week in week out at the church because this God

speaking through his Word is what leads our church. The Bible is God's Word. It is

authoritative and I need to ask you do you believe that? Do you? Do you live that?

Let me ask you. When was the last time that you did something you really

really didn't want to do simply because the Bible told you to do it? Perhaps it

was forgiving someone who'd hurt you really really badly. Maybe it was

attending church on a Sunday when there was a really good 430 game on the TV.

Maybe it was helping out a church member after you'd had an incredibly rough

hard day at work. When was the last time? And when was the last time that you

didn't do something that you really really wanted to do simply because the

Bible said that you must not do it? Maybe it was intentionally pulling away from

from a non-Christian colleague who you'd started to feel romantically attracted

to. Maybe it was deciding not to watch that Netflix series that everyone else

has been watching because you know that watching it is bad for your sexual

purity. What is authoritative in your life? Are you your ultimate authority or

is God the ultimate authority through his word? Now the second implication of

the Bible being God's word is that the Bible is without error in everything

that it affirms to be true. The Bible is absolutely true and trustworthy. That

flows out of two facts about the Bible. Fact number one that the Bible is God's

word, we've already seen that. Fact number two is that God does not lie or

make mistakes. So Job chapter 37 verse 16 tells us that God is perfect in

Job 37:16

knowledge. Isaiah chapter 46 verse 10 says that God knows the end from the

Isaiah 46:10

beginning and John chapter 17 verse 17 tells us that God's word is truth. So we

John 17:17

learn from these verses that God knows absolutely everything. God does not lie

which must mean, it must mean that God's word written the Bible is both true and

without error in all that it affirms. That is the reform view of the scriptures.

It's what John Calvin held, what Francis Turreton held, the view of Jonathan

Edwards and B.B. Warfield. It's the reform view. This does not contain any

error in what it intends to affirm to be true. But we need to be careful here.

People are quick to poke fun at what is often called the doctrine of inerrancy.

They say well you can't really believe that, not in the 21st century. I mean

what about the unscientific parts of the Bible? Like I've read Psalm 19 and I know

in verse 6 of Psalm 19, King David, he talks about the Sun making its

circuit through the sky but we all know that's not true. The Sun doesn't go

around the earth. That's only what foolish people 3,000 years ago believe.

We all know the earth goes around the Sun so that's clearly wrong. There's

clearly an error in the Bible. Psalm 19 verse 6. We can say that but only if

Psalms 19:6

you're also willing to say that the BBC News website is factually an error. Every

morning when you look up the weather report on this and it reports the time

the Sun sets and the Sun rise. We all know that the Sun doesn't set or rise, it

just is. But of course both King David 3,000 years ago and the BBC today, they

are writing phenomenologically. They are recording in writing what they see not

what scientifically is. Other people don't go for the unscientific parts of

the Bible. They instead go straight for the gospel accounts such as the

resurrection accounts. We looked at some of those last Sunday on Easter Sunday

and they pointed to different accounts, the four different accounts and they say

well which one is right? Was there one angel at the tomb like

Matthew and Mark say or was there two angels like Luke and John said? They

can't both be right. But of course each of those gospel accounts they are just

different eyewitness accounts of the one same event. Mark and Matthew they

focused on just one of the angels. Luke and John focused on two of the angels.

Just as some eyewitnesses to a road traffic accident just speak about the

driver in a car that crashed into the other car, whereas others mentioned the

driver, the passenger and the two kids in the back. They are different eyewitness

accounts that are each true of the same event. You see the Bible is without error.

Unlike us, we make errors all the time. The Bible never does. Which means and

this is really really important for us today, the Bible rightly understood,

that's a really important caveat, we must rightly understand this word but when we

rightly understand it, if it comes into conflict with what people generally

believe, the Bible is right every single time. No matter how unpopular that makes

us today. And boy we know it makes us unpopular don't we? On matters of sin and

sexuality, on topics of gender and judgment, justice and hell.

These are not comfortable truths to believe today. But that is central to

what it means for us to be reformed, to be trusting in God not in our own

judgment or opinion. To be standing in continuity with Christians down through

the millennia not going with the latest fad or claiming that the Bible somehow

needs to catch up with where we are today as sophisticated 21st century

people. And we believe that what we have here is the Word of God which means it

is the authority over our lives and over our church and it is always true. But

secondly what does the Bible do? Nearly 400 years ago 121 clergymen came

together in the Westminster Abbey and they came together to formulate a

document that became known as the Westminster Confession of Faith. It is

widely regarded as being the definitive statement of reformed doctrine and

listen to what that confession said about the Bible. It says this the whole

council of God concerning all things necessary for his own glory, man's

salvation, faith and life is either expressly set down in scripture or by

good and necessary consequence may be deduced from scripture. So the Bible

tells us everything we need to know for salvation and to live in a way that

pleases God. God's Word is powerful. We know that don't we? If we've read the Bible we

know that. Think back to Genesis chapter 1. How was the earth, the sun, the stars,

Genesis 1 · chapter mention

the moon created? God spoke and it happened. In the Old Testament how did

God create a people for himself? By his Word God called with a word Abraham out

of Ur-de-Kaldeans. In the New Testament we see Jesus healing the sick, casting out

demons, stealing a raging sea, even raising a little girl from the dead. How

does he do it? With an Aramaic word, talifah kum, little girl get up. Right here in

our hands we have the most powerful thing in the whole universe. We have the

very Word of God. And if we're Christians here this

afternoon we've experienced something about power firsthand. What do I mean?

Well we've experienced this power to say. The Bible doesn't tell us everything we

want to know about everything. It will not tell you how many penguins there are

in Antarctica. It will not tell you how many cells there are in a human body but

it does tell us everything we need to know about the most important things. It

gives us verse 15 wisdom. Wisdom that enables us to put our faith in Jesus for

salvation. Now notice how that works in verse 15. Our salvation hasn't been won

by the Bible. We are not saved, verse 15, in the Bible are we? No we are saved in

verse 15 Christ Jesus. You see the Bible is God the Holy Spirit's chosen means,

his tool, his instrument to bring us to faith in Jesus Christ. And that's because

every part of the Bible from beginning to end holds up Jesus. It floodlights

Jesus. Every page from Genesis to Revelation is like a big gigantic hand

pointing out at you and saying here is Jesus. So when we're in the beginning in

Genesis chapter 3 and we read this child of Eve who will crush Satan's head.

Genesis 3 · chapter mention

That's Jesus. We go forwards a few pages to Genesis chapter 22. We read of a ram

Genesis 22 · chapter mention

who dies in the place of Abraham's son Isaac. That's Jesus. Or we go forwards to

Exodus chapter 12 and then we find a lamb dying in the place the firstborn of

Exodus 12 · chapter mention

every Israelite family. That's Jesus. We move on through Exodus and we get to the

tabernacle the place where God dwells with his people. It's Jesus. We move on

and we get to the Kings and we find the shepherd boy, the little boy called David

who represents his people the nation in fighting against their great enemy and

wins. Who's that? Jesus. The little shepherd boy becomes a king. He becomes a

king who is forsaken. He cries out my God my God why have you forsaken me? Who's

that? Jesus. We get to the prophet Isaiah. We read about one to come who will not

break the bruised reed who will not snuff out the smouldering wick. Who's that?

It's Jesus. We get to Isaiah chapter 53. We read about a man of sorrows by whose

Isaiah 53 · chapter mention

wounds we are healed. Who's that? It's Jesus. We get to Zechariah. We read about a

mighty king coming in not on a warhorse but on a donkey of peace into his city

to reign. Who's that? It's Jesus. You see the whole Bible all of it from beginning

to end has been given to us to make us wise for salvation to lead us to Jesus.

Have you seen that my friends? Have you read this book the Bible? Have you let it

draw you into Jesus? Have you found here wisdom in the man who was crucified in

your place taking the punishment that you deserve for your rebellion against

God? Have you found truth here? Have you found life here in the one who went into

the grave but the grave could not hold him and he was resurrected to new life

three days later? Will you find salvation here today my friend by letting it lead

you to putting your trust in Jesus? What does the Bible do? It is the Holy Spirit's

tool for bringing you and I to salvation. That's why we preach it every single

Sunday here at City Church. That is why every single sermon you will hear at

City Church ends up with Jesus and his work not because we're shoehorning it in

but because every passage speaks about Jesus and his work. Because the Bible has

been given to lead us to Jesus and his salvation. Secondly, God uses the Bible to

transform us. Again the Bible is an instrument, it's a tool. It is the God, the

Holy Spirit, who transforms us from the inside out as Christians but the way he

does that is through the Bible. So do you want to grow as a Christian? Do you really

want to grow as a Christian? Well how often do you read your Bible? How often

do you listen to good sermons? How many Bible-soaked Christian books have you

read in the last year? Some research was undertaken by the Center for Bible

Engagement. They surveyed almost 3,000 Christians asking about their Bible

reading habits and the results were astonishing. They found that those who

read the Bible four days a week or more, that's just half the days in a week, those

who read the Bible four days a week or more were 40% less likely to be bitter in

their relationships, 32% less likely to be destructive about themselves or

others, 30% less likely to overeat or mishandle food, 60% less likely to feel

spiritually stagnated, 59% less likely to look at pornography, 228% more likely to

share their faith with others and 231% more likely to disciple someone else. God

the Holy Spirit uses God's Word, the Bible, to transform us. Look at verse 16

again. The Bible is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in

righteousness. There are two pairs here, both negative and positive, both dealing

with what we believe and what we do. So on the one hand what we believe, the

Bible teaches and corrects us. It deals with what we believe, it deals with

doctrine, it teaches us about God, about sin, about salvation and judgment and the

Bible corrects our wrong thinking too. It tells us that we are nowhere near as

good as we think we are and yet far more loved than we ever dared dream. And the

Bible transforms our lives as well as our thinking. Verse 16, it trains us in

righteousness and it rebukes our sin and that can be painful, that can be

uncomfortable, but that is how God works. The Reformed tradition has a famous

slogan, it's in Latin and it's this, semper reformanda, always reforming. You see we

test everything against Scripture. We test what we believe against Scripture,

we test how we do church against Scripture, we test how we gather

together against Scripture, we test how we treat people, how we treat the weak,

the poor, the vulnerable, we test it against Scripture. We want to be always

reforming, always letting God's Word transform our lives because that is how

he works in power. That according to verse 17 is how he thoroughly equips us

for every good work. The Australian preacher David Cook tells a story of a

young man called Ross who came to study at the the Bible Seminary that David

Cook taught at in Sydney. Now Ross was of Italian descent, his father moved to

Australia from Italy post-war as an immigrant and Ross was his parents fifth

child but the first boy in the family, the eldest son and there was a tradition

within Italian households that when the eldest son as a baby reached the age

when his fingernails had grown long enough to need to be cut, the tradition

was that the father of the child would take the baby's hands and take a pair of

scissors and he placed the baby's hand on something really valuable. Often it

would be a wad of Italian lira, lots of money and then he would snip each of the

child's fingernails. On this occasion Ross's father took Ross's hand and

didn't put it on a wad of notes but instead on a copy of the Italian Bible

because his father's number one concern for Ross was not that he would be

wealthy or successful but that he would be godly. Now when Ross reached the age

of 16 he was incredibly good at football, in fact he was so good at

football by the age of 16 that he'd been selected to play for the Australian

under 18 football team which is that every Italian father's dream to have

their son play national football. Ross was totally engrossed in football. One day

when Ross was leaving the house to go off to training his father stopped him

and said Ross have you read your Bible yet today?

Ross looked at his dad in bemused, Bible? I'm off to go training, I'm about to play

for the Australian national team. No dad I haven't read my Bible today and his

father replied Ross you cut the Bible out of your life, you cut God out of your

life. And Ross couldn't get that sentence out of his mind. A little while later he

got converted, went to Bible college and is now serving in full-time ministry. You

cut the Bible out of your life, you cut God out of your life. That is what we

believe as a Reformed Church. The Bible is God's Word to us today. It is

authoritative, it is without error. It is his instrument to save us and his

instrument to transform us today. Let me pray. Heavenly Father thank you for your

Word, the Bible. Thank you that it is your Word to us today. Thank you that it is

your authority over our lives. Thank you that it is without error. Lord thank you

that it is what you use to save. We're so blessed to be in a church where we've seen

that salvation many many times over. And it's your Word to transform so Lord take

your Word, Holy Spirit take your Word, let it deep down in our hearts and let it be

transforming of us now today tomorrow and forevermore. Amen.