“The 3:16’s” – 2 Timothy 3:16

Some years ago I took a vacation to Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming.  If you have never been there, you should go.  It is just incredible.  Texas has some beautiful country but this is almost like being on another planet.  It not only has incredible beauty and wildlife but it has hot springs and geysers and boiling, bubbling pools of mud or sulphur everywhere you go through the park.

I saw all kinds of deer, antelope, buffalo, birds, fish and even a black bear.  All through the park there are signs about how to treat the wildlife.  Warning signs are all over the place, especially about the buffalo and the bear.  All the signs say not to get any closer than 100 yards to the bears.  You have to put all your food in your camp in these special bear bins to keep the bears out.  They take safety very seriously especially when it comes to bears.

One day as I was driving through, I noticed that a bunch of cars had pulled over to the side and everybody was looking at something off the road in this meadow.  So I pulled over too thinking it was probably just a deer or something.  As I pulled over a park ranger was getting out of his vehicle too so I knew it must be something big.  Sure enough there was a black bear about 200 yards off the road.

The bear was just easing his way through the meadow eating berries or whatever he could find.  Everybody is taking pictures of course but this one lady is walking toward the bear as she is videoing him.  And she is beginning to get pretty close.  She is obviously looking through the camera and not where she is going because she starts to get within 100 yards of the bear and the park ranger starts to holler at her.

But she is not listening.  She’s just walking straight toward the bear and now the bear sees her and starts to alter his course to stay away from the crazy woman.  But she keeps walking and now the ranger is practically screaming at her.  All her friends are hollering and even the bear is giving her dirty looks.  But she keeps on just marching straight toward the bear.  Finally, she gets to what I would guess is about 40-50 feet and the bear that had been trying to ease away from her has had enough and he just takes 2 giant leaps toward her and I don’t know how close he was but if he had wanted to the bear could easily have had her for lunch.  But he didn’t want to hurt her.  He just wanted to be left alone.

As you can imagine, the woman finally gets the hint and she screams and throws her camera and runs as fast as she can toward the ranger and practically jumps in his arms.  Well, he went to loudly telling her how much trouble she was nearly in even though, at this point, I’m pretty sure she understood.  I don’t remember what all the ranger said to her but I remember her sobbing and telling him over and over again, “I didn’t know! I didn’t know!”

I remember thinking how foolish that sounded.  Every 3 feet there was a sign warning about bears and not to get too close to them.  All of the literature in the park talked about bear safety.  And the park ranger literally screamed at her over and over again.  “I didn’t know.  I didn’t know.”  Needless to say, nobody felt very sorry for her.  But I bet her camera has some great video on it, especially the last 2 seconds where it was thrown 20 feet in the air and then crushed by a bear paw.

I wonder how many times God is going to hear those words, “I didn’t know!  I didn’t know!”  And how many times is He going to say to someone, “I tried to tell you.  I told you through your friends, through creation. I sent my prophets.  I sent my Son.  I even wrote it all down for you in a best-selling book.” And yet there have always been and there will always be people who say they did not know.

If you want to know something about someone, what better way to learn about them than to read something they have written? When Hitler started to gain power in Germany and started making speeches, I understand he was very eloquent and easy to listen to. People were enamored with how he spoke and the way he seemed to connect with his audience. But had they read his book Mein Kampf they would easily have seen his anti-Semitism and racial prejudice.

And if you want to focus on Jesus then what better way to get to know Him and what He would have us do than to read the book inspired by God Himself? So, as we continue our sermon series entitled “The 3:16’s”, let’s do just that. Let’s read what this inspired book has to say about this inspired book. And through this look at 2 Timothy 3:16, we can adjust our focus onto Jesus. Why? Because a focus on Jesus will change this church and a Jesus-focused church will change the world.

Read 2 Timothy 3:16. “All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness.”

As usual, Paul has a way of saying in one sentence more than most of us will say in a lifetime. Paul is writing to his young friend Timothy who is now the pastor of the church in Ephesus that Paul had started and Paul is writing to him to encourage him and give him some help in knowing what he should do.

Being a young pastor, I’m sure Timothy welcomed the letter from an older, wiser brother. I can picture Timothy, who I am sure had never pastored a church before, suddenly being turned to to answer all kinds of questions and this one sentence was probably the best piece of advice he could have gotten.

You know the old saying that there is no such thing as a dumb question. Well, I think sometimes people take that as a challenge. I remember when I first told people I was called to be the pastor here. I had several people ask me the craziest questions. What is Satan’s last name? Are there cowboys and Indians in the Bible? Did Jesus fly like Superman? I would ask them what they thought the Bible said and they didn’t know. They just wanted me to tell them.

And today when people ask me what I think they should do about this situation or that relationship I try to always start by asking them what the Bible says about it. And since the Bible is a guidebook and not a rulebook, it may not answer the question of “Should I buy a new car or a used one?” but it will give you the guidelines you need to make wise decisions. And do you know why the Bible is a wise guidebook? Because it is God-breathed. I want to look at that word first and then we will see how we can use it to focus on Jesus.

“Theopneustas” is the word in Greek according to my concordance. Theo means God and pneustas means breathed. Like a pneumatic tire has air blown into it, the Bible was revealed and inspired by God. Genesis 2:7 says, “Then the LORD God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being.” Adam was theopneustas; he was God-breathed.

Well now, that’s just absolutely fascinating there pastor but how is that going to help me to focus on Jesus? Well, let me ask you something. If you want to know Jesus better; if you want to learn more about Him and become more like Him then what should you do? I would recommend getting closer to Him. I think we better start working on our righteousness to get closer to the One Who is righteous.

And what better way to work on our righteousness than to study the God-breathed book that is useful for training, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness? The great commentator Warren Wiersbe uses this outline for this verse and I want to expound on each word using this outline. He says teaching (or doctrine) shows us what is right, rebuking shows us what is not right, correcting shows us how to get right and training shows us how to stay right.

In the Antarctic summer of 1908-9, Sir Ernest Shackleton and three companions attempted to travel to the South Pole from their winter quarters. They set off with four ponies to help carry the load. Weeks later, their ponies dead, rations all but exhausted, they turned back toward their base, their goal not accomplished.

Altogether, they trekked 127 days. On the return journey, as Shackleton records in The Heart of the Antarctic, the time was spent talking about food -- elaborate feasts, gourmet delights, sumptuous menus. As they staggered along, suffering from dysentery, not knowing whether they would survive, every waking hour was occupied with thoughts of eating. Jesus, who also knew the ravages of food deprivation, said,

"Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for RIGHTEOUSNESS." We can understand Shackleton's obsession with food, which offers a glimpse of the passion Jesus intends for our quest for righteousness. www.sermonillustrations.com

If you want to be right before God then you absolutely have to know what is right. You have to know what the right thing to do is. And for most people trying to figure out what God says is right means a lifetime of frustration.  Trying to figure out what they should do in any given circumstance, even for Christians, can sometimes seem almost impossible.

A bishop of a century ago pronounced from his pulpit and in the periodical he edited that heavier-than-air flight was both impossible and contrary to the will of God. Oh, the irony that Bishop Wright had two sons, Orville and Wilbur! Wright was wrong. Sure of himself, but wrong. Robert P. Dugan, Jr., Winning the New Civil War, Page 38.

But we are told right here in our verse that all scripture is useful for teaching or for knowing what is right.  One problem people have is this:  they grab the Bible and open it to a certain book and expect their questions to be answered in italics on that page.  Almost as bad is having a favorite verse and relying on it to be the answer to all your questions. 

One of my favorites is Proverbs 3:5-6 that says, “Trust in the Lord with all your heart
and lean not on your own understanding;
⁶ in all your ways acknowledge Him,
and he will make your paths straight.”

I encourage people all the time to read, study and apply that verse when they have questions but even it can be misused if all you do is use that verse.  What?  How is that Todd?  Well if all you do is trust God to make your path straight and you never actually get off the couch and start to walk down that path then you will not know where to place your next step.  And that may sound trivial to you but the secret to knowing what is right is to use “all scripture” as Paul says here.

What does the whole canon of scripture tell you to do?  Don’t grab one or two verses and expect to be spoken to by God.  Can you imagine if young David had shown up to the battlefield and had seen Goliath and just said, “Well, I’m just going to trust the Lord”?  What David did was trust in the Lord but then he went and got 5 stones and took off running toward Goliath.

All scripture is theopneustas, God-breathed, and is useful for training.  So use all of scripture to learn what is right.  It also says that all scripture is useful for rebuking or reproof which is knowing what is not right.  And just like with training or knowing what is right, knowing what is not right will require the whole canon of scripture as well.  But when it comes to knowing what is not right (and this applies some to training as well) can I focus your attention on the 10 Commandments for a minute?

And as soon as I say “10 Commandments” you say, “Todd, Todd, Todd, that is so Old Testament.  We don’t live under the Law anymore!”  And you are very right.  It is very Old Testament and we don’t live under the Law but that means we are not saved by the Law.  It doesn’t mean the Law has no value.  Jesus said in Matthew 5:17 that He didn’t come to abolish the law but to fulfill it.  And when the rich young ruler came to Jesus in Matthew 19, Jesus wanted to know if he had kept the Law.

And when you have a question about something in your own life; when you don’t know which way to turn, the 10 Commandments and the whole Mosaic Law is a great place to start still today.  Should I spend money on this thing?  Well, will it become something that you put before God?  Should I marry this person?  #7 is “Do not commit adultery”.  Should I start this hobby or apply for this job?  Keep the Sabbath holy.  If it breaks one of those rules, I guarantee you that the answer is no, don’t do it.

And when used in conjunction with the whole canon of scripture, the teachings of Moses, David, Paul, Jesus and all the others, you have your strong foundation on which to build your life, knowing what is right and what is not right.  All scripture is useful for teaching, rebuking and correcting.  Correcting means knowing how to get right.  We have seen how to know what is right and what is not right but sometimes we need to know how to get right.

The word translated “correcting” in our passage means to restore to a right state.  A few years ago, an angry man rushed through the Rijks Museum in Amsterdam until he reached Rembrandt's famous painting "Nightwatch." Then he took out a knife and slashed it repeatedly before he could be stopped. A short time later, a distraught, hostile man slipped into St. Peter's Cathedral in Rome with a hammer and began to smash Michelangelo's beautiful sculpture The Pieta. Two cherished works of art were severely damaged. But what did officials do? Throw them out and forget about them? Absolutely not! Using the best experts, who worked with the utmost care and precision, they made every effort to restore the treasures.  Swindoll, The Quest For Character, Multnomah, p. 49.

And why did they restore those treasures?  They restored them because they were treasures.  They are precious and wonderful and meaningful.  And that is exactly how God feels about you.  And do you know that is the most wonderful bit of knowledge you can have when you need to be restored?  And we are told this all through the Bible.  The scriptures are useful for restoration because not only is it a guidebook and we can know what is right and what is not right but it is also a big ol’ fat love note to every one of us.

When you or somebody else needs to be restored back to a loving relationship with Jesus then there is no better word of encouragement than to simply tell somebody (or even to remind yourself) that Jesus loves you.  The simplest of children’s songs is, as usual, the most powerful.  “Jesus loves me this I know.  For the Bible tells me so.”  I can’t say anything more powerful or more important than that when you need to know how to get right.

Lastly, we see that all scripture is useful for training or instruction.  It is useful for knowing how to stay right.  We have seen how it is useful for knowing what is right and what is not right and for knowing how to get right.  How is the Bible, all scripture, useful for knowing how to stay right?

Earlier I said that if you want to know something about someone, what better way to learn about them than to read something they have written?  And if you want to know something about staying right then that is exactly what we are doing right now.  Who better to ask about staying right than the Apostle Paul himself?  In fact in just a few more verses from here in chapter 4, verses 6-7, Paul says, “For I am already being poured out like a drink offering, and the time for my departure is near. ⁷ I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.”

This is probably Paul’s last letter he ever wrote.  He knows his time is short and he wants Timothy to follow his example.  What is it about Paul that allowed him to stay right all those years?  Paul had an encounter with the one, true living God.  And that encounter led to a life-long relationship with Jesus.  Paul’s focus was on Jesus.  His writings were about Jesus.  His passion was for Jesus.  And because his passion and focus was on Jesus, it changed his life.  And because it changed his life, Paul’s life was spent, poured out, changing the world. And it can change your life too.  It can change your world if you will just let it.  Accept Jesus into your life today.  He loves you and He died to have a relationship with you.