back to indexSunday Sermon 12-07-14 Equipped for every good work. 2 Tim 3 14-17
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Chapter 3, I'll be reading from verse 14 to 17. 00:00:17.000 |
"But I ask for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it, 00:00:22.000 |
and how from childhood you have been acquainted with the sacred writings, 00:00:25.000 |
which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. 00:00:29.000 |
All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 00:00:36.000 |
that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work." 00:00:43.000 |
Gracious and loving Father, we thank you for this morning. 00:00:47.000 |
We thank you for the opportunity that we have to celebrate the communion table 00:00:52.000 |
and to remember, Lord, of Christ's sacrifice and what it means for us. 00:00:57.000 |
We pray, Father God, that your love for us and your sacrifice would never be old news, 00:01:08.000 |
to establish a firm foundation, Lord God, on which we are to build our life in our church. 00:01:14.000 |
We ask, Lord, that you would be gracious in allowing your word to speak 00:01:19.000 |
and challenging us, teaching us, rebuking us, correcting us, Lord God, 00:01:24.000 |
that the man of God may truly be equipped for every good work. 00:01:28.000 |
May your name be blessed as we come to bless you. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. 00:01:33.000 |
Again, as you guys know, 2 Timothy, as we continue to study, is being written to Apostle Paul's disciple. 00:01:41.000 |
And the environment in 2 Timothy is very different than the environment that he wrote his first letter, 00:01:47.000 |
even though not a whole lot of years have passed by. 00:01:50.000 |
The first letter that he writes in prison to the Philippians, there is a tinge of hope. 00:01:55.000 |
In fact, he says he's confident he's going to come out. 00:01:58.000 |
The result of the persecution, more Christians have become more bold to preach the gospel. 00:02:03.000 |
Yet here in 2 Timothy, the persecution has intensified. 00:02:07.000 |
There's been confusion of doctrine in the church of Ephesus. 00:02:11.000 |
And most likely Nero has kind of revered up the persecution and people are actually being executed. 00:02:19.000 |
And Paul being one of the first, being the leaders, and eventually Peter will be caught. 00:02:23.000 |
And every one of the disciples will be caught and some way or another will be executed. 00:02:28.000 |
And so Timothy and the other companions of Paul are beginning to backslide. 00:02:35.000 |
In Timothy, again, there's danger of him becoming timid and afraid. 00:02:39.000 |
You know, whenever we run into some kind of crisis in our life, 00:02:43.000 |
whether it's an individual crisis or a crisis in the church, 00:02:49.000 |
So sometimes you would get sick, and I'm talking about serious illness that comes into your life, 00:02:54.000 |
and then you take a step back and you begin to evaluate how you spend your time, 00:02:58.000 |
how you spend your money, your outlook on life. 00:03:00.000 |
What am I pursuing? Is this right to pursue, not to pursue? 00:03:03.000 |
And so that causes us to have a change in paradigm, 00:03:06.000 |
and oftentimes it kind of brings a new trajectory in our life. 00:03:13.000 |
Certain things happen, and we want it to be a certain way, and it is not, 00:03:17.000 |
and it causes a crisis, and this crisis causes us to re-examine the church, re-examine what we do. 00:03:27.000 |
there was a crisis in the church because almost weekly, monthly, 00:03:31.000 |
there was something being written about how the church is failing. 00:03:35.000 |
And there were statistics coming out left and right. 00:03:38.000 |
For every two people convert, three people are backsliding. 00:03:41.000 |
And in particular, within the Southern Baptist denomination, 00:03:44.000 |
they were saying that the churches were closing faster than they were being reproduced. 00:03:48.000 |
And in particular with the younger generation. 00:03:51.000 |
The younger generation, they said the statistic was, 00:03:54.000 |
they graduate high school, by the time they go through college and get to young adult, 00:03:58.000 |
anywhere between 40 to as high as 87 to 90% were walking away from their faith. 00:04:09.000 |
And so everybody's scrambling to, what are we doing? 00:04:13.000 |
Maybe the traditional way of doing ministry isn't working. 00:04:16.000 |
And all of a sudden, we start hearing these rumors about this one particular church, 00:04:21.000 |
which I'm not going to name, of how they're being effective in reaching the young people. 00:04:27.000 |
And how this church is growing in mass numbers. 00:04:32.000 |
And so all of a sudden, all the church growth, church planters, 00:04:38.000 |
And then they began to model that church and started to teach this in seminary. 00:04:42.000 |
And started to teach the young pastors who are being trained in seminary, 00:04:49.000 |
If we want to be effective, we have to follow this model. 00:04:52.000 |
And this model that I'm talking about is the modern day church growth movement. 00:04:59.000 |
And that movement came out of a crisis in the church. 00:05:08.000 |
The pastors are--we're getting news about pastors, one scandal after another. 00:05:14.000 |
And so in this crisis, it kind of caused the church to take a step back and look at it and say, 00:05:21.000 |
Now, that's been over 20 years since that movement came in. 00:05:24.000 |
And I remember first time hearing about this, there was a lot of debate. 00:05:28.000 |
And I remember learning about this in seminary. 00:05:31.000 |
And I was listening to--my first reaction to that was, 00:05:34.000 |
"Well, if we need to do everything in our power to get the gospel out, 00:05:38.000 |
and whatever they choose to do, at least that's better than nothing." 00:05:44.000 |
But now that 20-some years have passed, and we're looking at this modern day movement, 00:05:49.000 |
definitely our paradigm in the last 20, 25 years, 00:05:54.000 |
you could see the radical shift where we've turned to pragmatism. 00:06:04.000 |
Well, they did this, so we're going to apply that to this church. 00:06:10.000 |
So we're going to go over there, and they'll have this church organized this way, 00:06:15.000 |
And that type of thinking has permeated into the way that we do church. 00:06:20.000 |
Everything we do is, "Well, here's a problem. How do we solve it? 00:06:23.000 |
That church solved it. This is how we ought to solve it." 00:06:29.000 |
there is an overemphasis on human methodology, 00:06:33.000 |
thinking that every problem that we run into in the church can be easily solved 00:06:37.000 |
if we apply the right method and right organization. 00:06:42.000 |
But, you know, as a young pastor, when I first started ministering in my 20s, 00:06:48.000 |
part of the reason why I was so tempted to quit is because I tried everything. 00:06:56.000 |
I tried one time even shaving my head, saying, 00:06:59.000 |
"I'm not going to grow my hair until revival comes." 00:07:02.000 |
Then after a while, the hair started growing out, and I didn't cut it. 00:07:08.000 |
I said, "Well, maybe we'll take them out on the streets and go street preaching." 00:07:11.000 |
Now to kind of shake them up and make them love Christ and discipleship. 00:07:16.000 |
And we tried everything, and in the end, I felt like I wasn't getting anywhere. 00:07:20.000 |
So I started thinking to myself that maybe I just don't know what I'm doing. 00:07:25.000 |
I thought all I had to do was preach the Word of God and be passionate in prayer 00:07:30.000 |
But when I started doing ministry, it started to seem like that isn't enough. 00:07:35.000 |
So I started thinking to myself, "Maybe I need to go back to school 00:07:38.000 |
and get a degree in accounting or business so I can learn how to organize a church. 00:07:43.000 |
Maybe I need to go get a psychology degree so I can learn how to counsel people 00:07:56.000 |
But in that context, there was one thing that I observed. 00:08:03.000 |
It was just an observation that I was making through the years of struggling. 00:08:06.000 |
And that observation was the people that I saw consistently persevering. 00:08:11.000 |
And every single one of them had one thing in common, and that one thing was 00:08:21.000 |
Some of them were from different persuasions. 00:08:23.000 |
But every single person that I saw, not just one year, not just coming back from a retreat 00:08:27.000 |
or going to a summer mission and coming back and saying, "Yeah, I want to do this for God." 00:08:31.000 |
But consistently throughout the years, there's one thing that was consistent. 00:08:38.000 |
They all had a self-motivated interest in learning God's Word. 00:08:44.000 |
And that probably is one of the most important lessons I learned as a pastor 00:08:52.000 |
And here's a passage that, again, I quote quite a bit, but that I quote to myself often 00:09:01.000 |
"For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there, 00:09:06.000 |
but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, 00:09:09.000 |
giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, 00:09:12.000 |
so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth. 00:09:16.000 |
It shall not return to me empty; it shall accomplish that which I purpose, 00:09:20.000 |
and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it." 00:09:24.000 |
The reason why I quote this passage to myself so often is because 00:09:28.000 |
I don't see the result of the Word of God often with my eyes and with my perception. 00:09:35.000 |
Because I imagine that the Word of God would bear fruit in this way. 00:09:38.000 |
And so when it doesn't happen that way, I start to think, "Maybe this is not effective." 00:09:43.000 |
See, what the Word of God clearly says, that God sends his Word, 00:09:48.000 |
and it will not return until it has accomplished its purpose. 00:09:52.000 |
Now, that purpose is not always what you think. 00:09:55.000 |
Because oftentimes, God sent his Word to harden people's hearts. 00:10:00.000 |
Remember Isaiah? After showing him a vision of his glory? 00:10:04.000 |
You know, he's seen a magnificent picture of our holy, holy, holy God. 00:10:10.000 |
And then he says, "Who's going to go for me and speak on my behalf?" 00:10:15.000 |
And then when he volunteers, what does God say? 00:10:17.000 |
"Go to these people, these Israelites, these stiff-necked people. 00:10:20.000 |
They're not going to listen to you, but go tell them what I have to say." 00:10:26.000 |
If they're not going to listen, what's the point? 00:10:29.000 |
Well, there are times when God would send his Word to bring judgment to his natural conclusion. 00:10:38.000 |
Pharaoh didn't take a guy who was submitted to him and then change his heart and then judged him. 00:10:44.000 |
It's just the Word of God goes forth and hardened his heart even further. 00:10:48.000 |
So when the Word of God goes forth, even this morning, when the Word of God goes forth, 00:10:52.000 |
it never returns without accomplishing its purpose. 00:10:56.000 |
Some of you will hear the Word of God, and your heart will be softened, 00:11:00.000 |
and the Holy Spirit will speak and bring you closer to him. 00:11:03.000 |
Some of you will hear the Word of God, and you say, "Wow, I've heard that." 00:11:10.000 |
And every week that you hear the Word of God and you do not surrender to him, 00:11:13.000 |
your heart becomes harder and harder and harder. 00:11:16.000 |
So by the time you've sat through service, year after year, maybe decade after decade, 00:11:22.000 |
your heart becomes so hardened that the Word of God never penetrates. 00:11:26.000 |
In fact, your condition a year from now will be much worse than it is now. 00:11:33.000 |
If you happen to be in the presence where the Word of God is taught consistently 00:11:37.000 |
and you're being exposed to what the Word of God says, 00:11:39.000 |
and you continue to harden your heart, harden your heart, harden your heart, 00:11:43.000 |
you will at one point come to a situation where even the greatest preacher of our generation 00:11:49.000 |
comes and gives his best message, you will hear, "Wah, wah, wah, wah, wah." 00:11:59.000 |
And you have to almost experience something shocking in order to have any kind of, 00:12:07.000 |
One of the most important things that I had to learn as a pastor is that what God called me to do 00:12:13.000 |
is to teach and to preach his Word faithfully, because that's what God has ordained. 00:12:22.000 |
People look at the Old Testament and New Testament, there's so many different nuances. 00:12:33.000 |
Obviously, there's a lot of sub-lessons in that lesson, but there's only one lesson. 00:12:37.000 |
And he teaches this one lesson consistently from generation to generation, 00:12:44.000 |
If you look at the nation of Israel, they're wandering in the desert for 40 years. 00:12:47.000 |
Now, we know that they wandered in the desert as a result of their rebellion. 00:12:51.000 |
They didn't believe in God, so God judged them, so they wandered in the desert. 00:12:55.000 |
But God had a hidden purpose, and that purpose is to prepare them to go into the Promised Land, 00:13:03.000 |
Here's a nation that was born from a bunch of slaves, 00:13:09.000 |
and then God was preparing them to go into the Promised Land. 00:13:13.000 |
Now, they were going to go in immediately, but because they didn't believe God, 00:13:18.000 |
God was preparing them to conquer the Promised Land. 00:13:25.000 |
For 40 years, God told them to march in order, to march in order. 00:13:31.000 |
Let the Levites go, and then you have the next tribe and the next tribe. 00:13:37.000 |
If anybody knew how to march, it was the Israelites, because they practiced this for 40 years. 00:13:44.000 |
If you ever go to a country where they don't have a lot of opportunities, 00:13:47.000 |
so whatever you do, you do for a long period of time. 00:13:50.000 |
Like, if there's certain parts of China, like when we go there, 00:13:54.000 |
and you see them flipping pancakes, man, they are experts. 00:13:58.000 |
Because that's all they have been doing for the last 30 years, they flip pancakes. 00:14:02.000 |
Boom, they catch it in the back, flip it back, catch it, and it was like, we're amazed. 00:14:06.000 |
Because we live in a society, we have so many opportunities, 00:14:09.000 |
there's nothing we do for 30 years every single day, right? 00:14:14.000 |
But you go to certain parts of the world, whatever it is that they're doing, 00:14:17.000 |
putting inscriptions on a little piece of rice, I mean, they're experts. 00:14:22.000 |
Because that's what they've been doing for 30 years, right? 00:14:25.000 |
Whatever you're doing for 30 years, you become an expert. 00:14:28.000 |
So what were the Israelites experts in doing? 00:14:33.000 |
Okay, what else were they, what else was God doing with the people? 00:14:40.000 |
So if you ever want to know how to set up a tent, ask the Israelites. 00:14:48.000 |
Only a certain group of them could actually pound it in. 00:14:52.000 |
And only a certain group of them could actually carry it. 00:14:55.000 |
So these guys who pounded it in, they were experts at pounding in this pole, right? 00:15:01.000 |
And then there was another group of people who were experts in carrying it over their shoulder. 00:15:05.000 |
And then there was another group that was expert in carrying the Ark of the Covenant, right? 00:15:09.000 |
So every single one of them became experts in whatever they were doing for 30 years. 00:15:16.000 |
You want to know anything about camping? That's what they're experts in, right? 00:15:19.000 |
They did it for 30 years. They know how to camp. They know how to march. 00:15:23.000 |
But what does any of that have to do with conquering this nation? 00:15:29.000 |
In fact, at the end of that, what does God tell them to do? 00:15:33.000 |
They're ready to go in to conquer. What does he do? 00:15:36.000 |
Here's the only instruction that God gives the nation of Israel as they're about to enter into the Promised Land. 00:15:43.000 |
Joshua 1.7.9, "Only be strong and courageous, being careful to do according to all the law that Moses my servant commanded you. 00:15:52.000 |
Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have good success wherever you go. 00:15:58.000 |
This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, 00:16:02.000 |
so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it. 00:16:06.000 |
For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. 00:16:09.000 |
Have not I commanded you? Be strong and courageous. 00:16:13.000 |
Do not be frightened and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go." 00:16:18.000 |
Now you would think that, okay, we've wasted 40 years, right? 00:16:23.000 |
In 40 years they didn't learn how to shoot arrows, they didn't know how to defend themselves, 00:16:27.000 |
and how to throw spears. They didn't learn any of that. 00:16:30.000 |
They learned how to march, they learned how to put poles in, right? 00:16:35.000 |
Well at least now that we're going, okay, we'll trust you, right? 00:16:38.000 |
And he says, "Just listen. Don't turn away from my word." 00:16:42.000 |
Okay, so we're going to go in, so we're listening because this is the only thing you told us. 00:16:46.000 |
What do you want us to do? What does God tell them to do? 00:16:49.000 |
March. They know how to march. They've been doing that for 40 years. 00:16:56.000 |
So there's no question, it's like, okay, you told us to march for 40 years, we know how to do this. 00:17:01.000 |
Picked it up, they marched. Second day, okay, you know, 00:17:05.000 |
I don't get what you're doing, but what do we do the second day? 00:17:13.000 |
On the seventh day, he said, "Okay, God says, today is the day. 00:17:17.000 |
Today is the day where I'm going to anoint you and you're going to conquer this city. 00:17:22.000 |
Okay, now, okay, now we've been doing this silly thing about walking around. 00:17:26.000 |
What do we do on the seventh day?" Now, on the seventh day, do it seven times. 00:17:31.000 |
Seven times. And you know exactly what happens. 00:17:34.000 |
On the seventh time, they turn around, they carry this Ark of the Covenant, 00:17:40.000 |
And they walk in, they don't even have to fight. 00:17:43.000 |
They walk in and they conquer. What was God trying to teach the nation of Israel? 00:17:49.000 |
In fact, if you read the book of Numbers, and again, years ago, 00:17:52.000 |
I remember preaching through the Old Testament, and we got through Leviticus, 00:17:55.000 |
and I really wasn't looking forward to preaching through Leviticus, 00:17:58.000 |
for obvious reasons. I would just, I would just, 00:18:01.000 |
that's not a book that I was very familiar with. 00:18:04.000 |
But I gained so much. And the more patient you are, 00:18:07.000 |
and the more you dig in the book of Leviticus, 00:18:09.000 |
you see so much of it connected to Christ and the Gospel. 00:18:17.000 |
Like 12,000, 144,000, 18,000, like, and it over and over again, 00:18:22.000 |
it gives you the count of the nation of Israel. 00:18:25.000 |
This tribe had this many people, and these are the people, 00:18:28.000 |
and you just have genealogy over and over again. 00:18:31.000 |
So what am I going to get out of this, right? 00:18:34.000 |
In fact, Numbers was the book that really kind of shook me, 00:18:38.000 |
because it was so clear what God was doing with the nation of Israel. 00:18:46.000 |
basically, they enter into the desert with 600,000 people. 00:18:49.000 |
They exit out of the desert with 600,000 people. 00:18:54.000 |
But if you pay attention to the list carefully, 00:18:57.000 |
you will notice that the number in each tribe 00:19:01.000 |
So some of the tribes who enter, entered in a pretty big tribe, 00:19:06.000 |
they come out of it almost depleted in half or even more. 00:19:09.000 |
And then there are some tribes that come in, a tiny little tribe, 00:19:12.000 |
and they come back almost doubled, more than doubled. 00:19:16.000 |
And the reason why this is significant is based upon 00:19:19.000 |
how well they kept the Word of God, how obedient they were, 00:19:23.000 |
that their inheritance, when they got to the Promised Land, 00:19:28.000 |
So there is this one particular tribe, the Simeonites, 00:19:31.000 |
because they were disobedient, almost half of them were slaughtered, 00:19:37.000 |
By the time they come to the Promised Land, their tribe is so small, 00:19:42.000 |
They get a little piece of land within the land of Judah. 00:19:45.000 |
Now, there's a lot more to the Book of Numbers than that, 00:19:50.000 |
is to teach the nation of Israel the same thing that he was teaching 00:19:57.000 |
"Do not turn from my Word to the left or to the right." 00:20:04.000 |
"Do not turn from my Word to the left or to the right." 00:20:09.000 |
And the reason why I say this is that whenever there is 00:20:11.000 |
some kind of a crisis, whether there's a personal spiritual crisis, 00:20:17.000 |
we have a tendency to start looking out to see, 00:20:22.000 |
Maybe there's something happening in that church, 00:20:26.000 |
and if we adopt what they're doing and do it here, 00:20:32.000 |
But the Word of God is absolutely crystal clear. 00:20:35.000 |
"Do not turn from my Word to the left or to the right." 00:20:42.000 |
to preach the Word in season and out of season. 00:20:48.000 |
preach it when people respond, preach it when they don't respond. 00:20:52.000 |
Preach it when you bear fruit, preach it when they don't bear fruit, 00:20:55.000 |
because there will never be a time when the Word of God will go forth 00:20:58.000 |
and will return without accomplishing God's purpose. 00:21:03.000 |
See, Paul is writing to Timothy because right now 00:21:10.000 |
When Paul wrote his first letter in Philippi, 00:21:15.000 |
it was exciting. Even though he was in prison, 00:21:23.000 |
more people have gotten confidence to preach the Word of God boldly." 00:21:29.000 |
it was like, you know, they were like rock stars. 00:21:35.000 |
These are the guys who were coming, Paul and his companions, 00:21:42.000 |
So, I mean, imagine how exciting that would be, 00:21:44.000 |
to be a part of that team, going from city to city, 00:21:46.000 |
experiencing some persecution, planting churches, 00:21:58.000 |
"What do we do about this?" I mean, that was exciting. 00:22:05.000 |
Now the persecution is not coming from the Jews, 00:22:10.000 |
Now the Gentiles, who have real authority, real power, 00:22:14.000 |
are starting to go after them, and that's exactly what happens. 00:22:22.000 |
Then every one of the apostles will be captured. 00:22:29.000 |
And every single one of them that we see in the New Testament, 00:22:32.000 |
being faithful, majority of them are martyred for their faith. 00:22:37.000 |
And so on the surface, we may look at that and say, 00:22:43.000 |
You know, in the past, we were going into the city, 00:22:46.000 |
and people were responding. Now we go in, we get stoned, 00:22:51.000 |
That's the reason why Paul is telling Timothy 00:22:59.000 |
You know, we're always looking for new things, 00:23:06.000 |
Remember how you got the Word, and continue," he says, 00:23:11.000 |
Remember when Jesus was leaving the disciples, 00:23:13.000 |
and the disciples were saying, "You know what? 00:23:18.000 |
You know, the Pharisees came, and they hated you, 00:23:21.000 |
but as long as we were with you, we were safe. 00:23:27.000 |
Same thing that God's been telling the nation of Israel. 00:23:38.000 |
and He's going to remind you of everything that I've said, 00:23:54.000 |
not trying to apply new things and new organizations, 00:24:13.000 |
If I tell you to get in line, you get in line. 00:24:25.000 |
And is it any different in the New Testament? 00:24:34.000 |
the exact same sermon, and people will respond 00:24:46.000 |
No one's going to come to your church if you do that." 00:25:00.000 |
and conviction that this is what God has ordained. 00:25:23.000 |
and then the devil's going to come pick it up. 00:25:28.000 |
Sometimes the Word of God is going to be spread, 00:25:30.000 |
and then it's going to seem like it's going to bear fruit, 00:25:38.000 |
Sometimes you're going to spread the Word of God, 00:25:40.000 |
and it's going to seem like there's some response, 00:25:43.000 |
but as soon as hardship comes and difficulty comes, 00:25:53.000 |
Some are going to seem like they're going to receive you, 00:26:11.000 |
"I can't. It's not up to me or you to cause things to grow." 00:26:18.000 |
Let people be exposed to what the Word of God says, 00:26:27.000 |
we automatically begin to think there's got to be something more. 00:26:31.000 |
You know, this church is about the Word of God, 00:26:42.000 |
and we're looking for all these different things 00:27:14.000 |
they had a hard time understanding what Jesus was saying, 00:27:18.000 |
Jesus asked his disciples, "Are you going to go too?" 00:27:35.000 |
but if I want life, you have the words of life. 00:27:39.000 |
That's what caused his disciples to persevere with them. 00:27:42.000 |
Not because they knew anything better than the other people, 00:27:46.000 |
not because they were more noble than the other people. 00:27:49.000 |
They believed that Jesus had the words of life. 00:28:06.000 |
Or do you recognize that the word of God is life? 00:28:20.000 |
It's the word of Christ that you heard that caused you to live. 00:28:27.000 |
that we were absolutely dependent upon his mercy to be saved. 00:28:31.000 |
The Bible says that we were dead in our trespasses. 00:28:43.000 |
A dead person is just there until somebody resuscitates. 00:28:48.000 |
That's how the Bible describes our salvation. 00:29:06.000 |
if we try different methods, different organization, 00:29:09.000 |
that this will somehow bring more people to Christ? 00:29:11.000 |
The Bible says, "Preach the word in season and out of season." 00:29:15.000 |
Some people will respond, and some people will not. 00:29:19.000 |
But you will never do more than what God has ordained 00:29:30.000 |
Again, there's nothing wrong with any of this stuff, 00:29:33.000 |
but when we begin to think that somehow that is the answer, 00:29:50.000 |
the rain started coming, and he was by himself, 00:29:56.000 |
He thought, "Maybe I'll run in here for a little bit, 00:29:58.000 |
and if they would let me, I'll stay there for a little bit, 00:30:00.000 |
and then when the rain stops, I'm going to go out." 00:30:06.000 |
You know, we're actually having a Bible study. 00:30:11.000 |
listen to these religious fanatics, you know, 00:30:15.000 |
He comes in, and they're having a Bible study, 00:30:20.000 |
He doesn't have a Bible, and again, he's a nominal Jew, 00:30:27.000 |
he immediately thought it was the New Testament, 00:30:35.000 |
but I just need to let you know that to me it's offensive 00:30:38.000 |
because I don't believe in the New Testament." 00:30:41.000 |
To his surprise, one of the men in the Bible study said, 00:30:57.000 |
And that whole book is about this testimony of his conversion 00:31:00.000 |
and how he went back home, and it rocked his world. 00:31:06.000 |
and he realized that Christ was in the Old Testament. 00:31:11.000 |
and I tried so hard to look for that book yesterday, 00:31:19.000 |
who was confronted with the truth of God's Word, 00:31:24.000 |
He says all Scripture is God-breathed, all of it. 00:31:29.000 |
the heavens were made, and by the breath of his mouth, 00:31:45.000 |
And some of you guys who may have studied church history 00:31:47.000 |
a little bit will say, "You know, that happened 00:31:53.000 |
He's probably referring only to the Old Testament." 00:32:01.000 |
that even in the writing of the New Testament, 00:32:14.000 |
In 1 Timothy 5:18, Paul--again, just listen carefully. 00:32:20.000 |
1 Timothy 5:18, Paul says, "For the Scripture says, 00:32:23.000 |
'You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain, 00:32:30.000 |
how people in ministry ought to be supported. 00:32:41.000 |
Deuteronomy 25, verse 4, which is the Old Testament. 00:32:51.000 |
That's actually a direct quote from Luke 10, verse 7. 00:34:04.000 |
was because it was inspired by the breath of God. 00:34:12.000 |
But when he showed up, he was a short, bald guy. 00:34:25.000 |
See, when we're talking about the breath of God, 00:34:32.000 |
The image that I get is the image of resuscitation. 00:34:42.000 |
And the reason why we're taught mouth-to-mouth 00:34:51.000 |
where God has put his breath into the word of God 00:34:55.000 |
so that those who are dead in their trespasses 00:35:11.000 |
because the power of you going out and evangelizing 00:35:16.000 |
It's like, "Oh, we need to be better trained to do this. 00:35:22.000 |
In the end, the core of what God has given us 00:35:26.000 |
And then, again, the danger is when we get into ministry 00:35:30.000 |
and try to bear fruit, it's like, "Oh, it's not bearing fruit 00:35:34.000 |
And then we start to think, "Okay, maybe there's something else. 00:35:47.000 |
Maybe if we had home Bible study instead of church Bible study. 00:35:51.000 |
Maybe if we went to China or India or somewhere else. 00:35:54.000 |
Maybe if we did all of these things, that somehow 00:35:56.000 |
this is going to bring revival, and it's going to produce 00:36:02.000 |
where we begin to think that if we apply different methods 00:36:12.000 |
do not turn from the Word of God to the left or to the right. 00:36:19.000 |
If you and I got saved, because we're completely helpless, 00:36:22.000 |
and the Word of God came, and that's exactly what God 00:36:33.000 |
See, when we use methods, they'll come to the church. 00:36:39.000 |
they'll say, "Oh, this church has all this program." 00:36:43.000 |
You know, when you, "Oh, if you preach this way, 00:36:45.000 |
if you organize this way," they're going to say, 00:36:47.000 |
"That church, I like this church because this church 00:37:12.000 |
And I'm going to do one more thing before we open up 00:37:17.000 |
He says, "Because it is profitable for teaching." 00:37:20.000 |
Now, I'm going to do this one, and I'm going to save 00:37:30.000 |
Didache is the main word that is used to talk about 00:37:35.000 |
Didaskalia is the act of teaching, instructing. 00:37:42.000 |
if you have the King James or New King James, 00:37:49.000 |
translations will say it is profitable for teaching. 00:37:53.000 |
And the reason why it's that is because majority 00:37:55.000 |
of the translators believe that this word is not 00:38:02.000 |
Of course, if you want to know what to believe 00:38:04.000 |
as a Christian, of course you have to come to 00:38:07.000 |
But the word that is used here is not didache, 00:38:19.000 |
And what that means is, he's not referring to 00:38:25.000 |
Because that's the way I understood it for years. 00:38:30.000 |
the Word of God, you have to study the Word of God. 00:38:45.000 |
And that's, again, that's what I thought this meant. 00:38:51.000 |
The word teaching is, when he says at the end of this, 00:38:53.000 |
in verse 17, he said, "All of this, for teaching, 00:38:56.000 |
for reproof, for correcting, for training in righteousness, 00:38:59.000 |
that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped 00:39:04.000 |
Now, this is directly linked to our ordination today. 00:39:16.000 |
Because the scripture doesn't give that as a criteria. 00:39:20.000 |
If you look at the criteria of an elder or a deacon, 00:39:36.000 |
he's talking about a man who has been deeply affected 00:39:41.000 |
The teaching that he's talking about, instruction, 00:39:43.000 |
Psalm 32, verse 8, the Word of God is a lamp unto our path. 00:39:50.000 |
In Romans 12, 2, the Word of God causes us to think, 00:40:04.000 |
The Word of God is living act to sharpen any double-edged sword, 00:40:07.000 |
is able to judge, divide between bone and marrow, 00:40:13.000 |
and is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of our hearts. 00:40:17.000 |
So, the Word of God, the instruction, gives all of it. 00:40:21.000 |
Not just the way we live, not just the way we think, 00:40:25.000 |
So, when he's talking about the Word of God is useful, 00:40:29.000 |
he's talking about to make a man the way God desires him to be. 00:40:34.000 |
So, when the Bible says that the calling of an elder, 00:40:43.000 |
does he have knowledge and can he disseminate this knowledge? 00:40:53.000 |
You've studied just as much as any seminary student does. 00:40:58.000 |
You know, some of you guys have probably studied much more 00:41:11.000 |
He's talking about an individual who has been, 00:41:27.000 |
but if my heart is wrong, I could be dead wrong. 00:41:32.000 |
Preaching the word of God is not just disseminating information. 00:41:42.000 |
And that's why he says the word of God is profitable 00:41:50.000 |
and we're going to open up the communion table this morning. 00:41:57.000 |
when what we're doing here is just not going to be popular. 00:42:03.000 |
but I've been in ministry long enough to know 00:42:13.000 |
you know, it's just like people could care less. 00:42:22.000 |
There was no appetite, because people would come to me, 00:42:35.000 |
because on Friday nights, all we did was exposit the Book of Romans. 00:42:38.000 |
And they said, "How come we're not playing tennis? 00:43:00.000 |
People would come, and everything was cutting edge. 00:43:02.000 |
You know, it's like, "Oh, that church is doing this, 00:43:04.000 |
and that church is growing, and your church is not growing, 00:43:06.000 |
because you're not doing this, and you're not doing that." 00:43:10.000 |
I've already been in ministry long enough to know 00:43:12.000 |
that whatever that produces, I don't want it. 00:43:14.000 |
Even if it causes the church to grow, I don't want it, 00:43:32.000 |
Why would you want that? Why would I want to be a pastor over that? 00:43:44.000 |
whether it grows or doesn't grow, whether we end up 00:43:50.000 |
And I'm not going to turn from it to the left or to the right. 00:44:02.000 |
we may look at it and say, "Oh, there's an appetite. 00:44:04.000 |
People want to come because they want to hear the Word of God. 00:44:20.000 |
this, maybe if you tried that." And I'm telling 00:44:26.000 |
one, because I'm stubborn. I know I'm stubborn. 00:44:30.000 |
importantly, that's what the Word of God says. 00:44:42.000 |
you're attached to people. I mean, that's great if you're attached 00:44:44.000 |
to people. You don't come to church thinking like, "If we did 00:44:50.000 |
love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind 00:45:00.000 |
is enough because you're always getting it second 00:45:04.000 |
what kind of relationship I would have with my wife 00:45:28.000 |
if everything, every communication, every relationship 00:45:34.000 |
There's nothing wrong with you receiving, but 00:45:38.000 |
that's the kind of relationship that you're going to have. 00:45:50.000 |
to the Word of God and hear from Him directly