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II Timothy 3:14-17- 14 But as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it 15 and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

I want to say this right out of the chute: You never outgrow your need for the Word of God. Here, Paul told Timothy that he should continue to live by what he had been taught, that he should continue to walk in the way of the Word. He highlighted that from childhood, Timothy had been acquainted with the sacred writings. That, my friends, is good parenting. For Paul to know that Timothy had been acquainted with the Word, the Word that had been written up to that time, Timothy either had to have told him or Paul had to have heard it from Timothy’s family. What a gift Timothy had been given to have been raised in a home where the Word was revered.

I was blessed to grow up in a home where the Word was important and where memorizing the Word was a priority. When I was just a girl, I memorized a lot of Scripture, scriptures like:

Matthew 16:16 which states Simon Peter answered and said, “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God.” That verse was foundational to me understanding who Jesus was and why I needed Him in my life.

Jeremiah 17:9, “The heart is deceitful above all things and desperately wicked. Who can know it?” This truth was critical for me to accept early on. I had a heart problem, and I needed someone to fix it.

Romans 5:6 was ingrained in me in my childhood. It says, “For when we were yet without strength, in due time Christ died for the ungodly.” Christ died for me. I was ungodly. My heart wasn’t right. He was the One who could fix what was wrong with me.

I learned Titus 3:5 which states, “Not by works of righteousness which we have done, but according to His mercy He saved us, by the washing of regeneration, and renewing of the Holy Spirit.” Learning about God’s mercy from a young age unlocked a door for me to be able to experience God. I could have seen my sin as an obstacle that could never be overcome. I could have resigned myself to only be what I was, but God, in His mercy, through His Word, revealed to me what He had done which trumped anything I had done or would ever do, and I learned to trust the mercy of God rather than my feeble attempts to save myself. Like, I got these realities ingrained in me as a kid. Church, I was liberated before I really understood how bound I was. What a gift the Scriptures gave to me!

There are so many Scriptures that the Holy Spirit will bring to my mind now just when I need them, something that wouldn’t be possible if I hadn’t hidden God’s Word in my heart. I believe that knowing the Word has saved me unnecessary pain. It has been one of the main reasons I am still on the path with Jesus today.

Timothy knew and believed the Word. We know that Timothy’s mother and grandmother had been tremendous faith mentors. We read in II Timothy 1:5,  5 I am reminded of your sincere faith, a faith that dwelt first in your grandmother Lois and your mother Eunice and now, I am sure, dwells in you as well.

There had been a faithful transmission of the Word from generation to generation to generation in Timothy’s family. Timothy’s grandmother deposited the Word into his mother who deposited the Word into him. What a beautiful picture of the way faith can be acquired! In our passage for today, Paul tells Timothy to continue to believe the things he had been taught. There are some things that are good for us for a season, but we then outgrow them, we no longer have a use for them, or they are replaced with something better, something that can carry us forward. Hear me: There is no season during which the Word isn’t useful, there is nothing better that could be traded for the Word. The Word provides the path believers are to walk on for a lifetime. So, Paul told Timothy to continue to hold fast to what he had been taught.

Timothy had been taught the truth, but even by this time, many were falling away from the Word. You know people who were “raised in the Church,” taught the truth, who have fallen away. In Timothy’s day, many were falling for deceptions regarding the Word. There were false teachers in Paul’s day who were denying the resurrection of Christ (II Timothy 2:17-18). Paul was not only spreading the Faith, but he had to defend the Faith against such false teaching. He proclaimed in I Corinthians 15:14, “And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.” Of course, Christ had been raised from the dead! Paul and the others who were preaching Christ, weren’t risking their lives to spread something false or to start a new religious fad. They had seen the Lord, and they were giving their lives to make sure people knew Christ was alive.

Listen, the Word has always been under attack. From the beginning, Satan attacked the integrity of God’s Word in the Garden when he tempted Eve to sin against God. His attack began with an attack on the Word when he said, “Did God really say you shall not eat of any tree in the garden?” No, God didn’t say that, but Satan wanted Eve doubting God’s Word. He wanted to undermine the credibility and authority of God’s Word. There are pastors, professors and so-called scholars today who are teaching that the Bible is filled with errors and cannot be trusted. There are others who say it’s impossible to interpret an ancient document in a modern context. They argue that an ancient manuscript cannot speak into a current culture on sexuality, parenting, government, marriage, science or a host of other topics. I’m going to debunk those perspectives in a minute. Just know, that even as in Paul’s day, many are falling prey to Satan’s schemes and are abandoning the Word for the philosophies of the world. We’ve got to be people who hold fast to the Word of truth, (Philippians 2:16) who rightly divide the Word of truth (II Timothy 2:15).

After Paul told Timothy to continue on in the Word, he went on to say in verse 15 that the Word is able to make a person wise for salvation, II Timothy 3:15.

Let me be clear…We aren’t saved by reading the Bible, but the Bible contains the information that a saved person needs to be able to live saved. We are saved by grace through faith in the finished work of Christ, but learning how to live out that salvation comes from studying the Word of God. Your best life with Christ and for Christ results from your relationship with Christ and with His Word.

This takes me to the main verse of our text:  16 All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

Scripture is God-breathed. It isn’t man’s opinion on truth. It is God’s revelation to man about what is true. That means the Bible possesses authority. God is the supreme authority, and on the pages of Scripture, we have God’s very words. As God breathed it out to humans, they wrote it down. II Peter 1:20-21 tells us that no prophecy from Scripture comes through the will of a human, but men spoke and wrote down what was communicated by God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit. Scripture is God-breathed, and you can trust it!

If the Bible had been written by men, and not inspired by God, don’t you think the authors would have left some parts out? Don’t you think that Noah would have found a way to have the time that he got drunk expunged from the record? Don’t you think Abraham would have requested that the record removed his multiple lies and his impulsive sexual encounter with his maidservant? I mean, Abraham, the Father of the Jewish nation couldn’t have sin on his report card, could he? If the Bible was the result of human effort, don’t you think Samson’s family would have wanted to scrub Samson’s downfall from the testimony? Don’t you think Peter would have resisted having his multiple failures written down for generations to discuss?

Friends, it’s all in there…the good, the bad, and the ugly because God wanted us to see how He worked through imperfect, impulsive, and even impure people to transform them and to accomplish His will. It’s all there for us to read so that we might be instructed and encouraged that if God could use the kind of people He used all throughout Scripture, surely He can use us!

Paul goes on to tell Timothy that Scripture is profitable to us. It offers benefits to us. Simply, the Bible is good for us. Paul says first it is profitable for teaching. Every one of us in this room needs instruction. We need to learn about God and ourselves. We need to learn about the pitfalls of sin and the reality of Satan. We need to learn about what to do when we go off the rails and need a reset. We need to understand what faith is and how miracles work. We need to learn about all that is available to us in Christ. We need to learn how to defeat the devil in our own lives. We need to understand what lies beyond the doorway of death. Listen, the One who has gone beyond the doorway of death, who came back from the dead, who overcame death, Hell, and the grave, He’s the Author of the Book! Don’t you want to learn about overcoming death from Someone who has been there and done that? There are things we would never be able to know if it wasn’t for the Word of God. It is profitable for teaching us because it shapes and grows our beliefs which develops our faith. This is so critical because what we believe will affect how we live. Learning the right things, learning about life and the life to come from God’s perspective will positively impact the way we live. We all must be taught the right way to live.

Paul also says the Word will offer reproof to our lives. If teaching enables us to learn the right things to do, reproof helps us understand what wrong things to avoid and convicts us of the need to change. Think of the Word as having convicting power. The Bible reveals things to us that need to be changed. It has convicting power, power that helps us own our wrongdoing and to commit to doing life differently.

So, the Word teaches us what is right, shows us what is wrong, and then offers us correction which gives us a plan to walk out what we learn. Correction shows us how to move in a different direction. That word, “correction” refers to restoring something to its original and proper condition. In Greek literature, that word was used to describe setting an object upright after it had fallen down. It could refer to helping someone get back on their feet after they had fallen. This is the power of the Word of God when we receive the correction it has to offer. After we have been convicted of our sin, we need a way forward so that we don’t repeat it. That kind of correction comes to our lives as we avail ourselves to the Word.

Let me give you an example. Look at Ephesians 4:28: “Let the thief no longer steal, but rather let him labor, doing honest work with his own hands, so that he may have something to share with anyone in need.”

Do you see how this verse goes beyond simply saying, “Stop stealing?” We see instruction in this verse. The instruction is that God’s people are to be generous people, people who share with others. The reproof is the “stop stealing/it’s wrong” portion, and the admonishment to labor and do honest work so that you can live to be the generous person Scripture teaches God’s people must be, well, that’s the correction part. It isn’t just a book of rules. It’s a “how to” and a “why to” kind of book!

Paul also says that the Word is profitable for for training in righteousness, 17 that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

Think of God’s Word as a coach, a righteousness coach. It prepares you to do the good works that God has for you to do. There is a direct correlation between receiving the Word and being ready to be used of God. You can’t unsee what Paul is saying here. The Word of God brings a completion, a wholeness, a readiness to your life that enables you to more effectively serve God.

Spiritual strength comes by reading the Word. The development of faith comes by reading the Word. Discerning God’s voice becomes a skill that is honed as you read the Word. The way to be prepared to witness, the way to be prepared for the unexpected, the way to be readied for life and eternity is by taking the Word of God seriously. We have to be in the Word, abiding by the Word and allowing the Word to abide in us if we want to bear Kingdom fruit.

John 15:7 says, “If you abide in me, and my words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you.” That sounds like fruitful praying, right? To be equipped for every good work, you want to know that your prayer life is yielding fruit. Here in John 15, Jesus tied fruitfulness to abiding in His Word.

John 8:31-32 says, “If you abide in my Word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” Listen, abiding in God’s Word won’t only help you to live free of sin as you walk in the truth, but you can be free of the love of money, free of the love of other people’s opinions, free of the spirit of offense that wants to keep us offended, free from the bitterness and jealousy that paralyzes us, free from addictions that restrict us and steal life from us, free from worry and fear which keep us from being equipped for every good work! To live free is to be free to follow Christ with our whole heart, soul, mind and strength without concern for ourselves or our futures. I want to be thoroughly equipped for every work!

I want to know what I need to know. (Training) I want to know what I need to acknowledge and confess. (Reproof) I want to know the way to fix what is broken. (Correction) I want to know how best to serve God (Equipped for every good work).

The late theologian Warren Wiersbe said, “The better we know the Word, the better we are able to live and work for God.” How can you be better equipped in 2025 to serve the Lord than you were in 2024? Get more serious about reading and living out the Word of God.

Can you dedicate yourself this year to letting God work in you through His Word? Hebrews 4:12 says, “For the Word of God is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing to the division of soul and of spirit, of joints and of marrow, and discerning the thoughts and intentions of the heart.”

God’s Word is alive. He has a purpose for it in 2025 just as He has had purposes for it down through the centuries. It’s living and active. Something can be living but not be real active, right? You can be breathing but be a couch-potato, not really accomplishing anything. God’s Word is living AND active. It is dynamic and powerful. It is a force that when we allow it to be enacted upon us, it starts to do spiritual surgery on us!

It exposes that which needs to be exposed. It cuts away that which isn’t benefitting you. Be thankful that the Word is sharp enough for spiritual surgery, sharp enough to remove spiritual cancers from us. Be thankful that the Word is living and active because it molds that which needs to be transformed in your mind and spirit. Trust the Word of God as it reveals God’s thoughts to you about your life.

Rejoice that it reveals who you are to yourself and in the process shows you a better way. Self-knowledge is the most difficult knowledge to gain, and when gained, it is perhaps some of the most painful, but in the end, it becomes the most profitable. Listen, the Word will tell you the truth about yourself!

I would submit to you that the Bible isn’t merely something you read, but it is something that reads you.

God says that His Word will accomplish the purposes for which He has sent it, Isaiah 55:11. Whatever God says, happens. This is not merely an historical document; it is a living document. It will always produce a beneficial result in the person who is willing to receive it. It has never lost its power and authority. God’s power is released where the Word is preached, received, and applied.

God’s Word is profitable, beneficial teaching, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness. If you want to be thoroughly equipped to do God’s work, get into the Word. That is the word on the Word from II Timothy 3:14-17.