Chapter 3, I'll be reading from verse 14 to 17. 2 Timothy 3, verse 14 to 17. Reading out of the ESV. "But I ask for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it, 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.

All scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be competent, equipped for every good work." Let's pray. Gracious and loving Father, we thank you for this morning. We thank you for the opportunity that we have to celebrate the communion table and to remember, Lord, of Christ's sacrifice and what it means for us.

We pray, Father God, that your love for us and your sacrifice would never be old news, but it would constantly change us, renew us, to establish a firm foundation, Lord God, on which we are to build our life in our church. We ask, Lord, that you would be gracious in allowing your word to speak and challenging us, teaching us, rebuking us, correcting us, Lord God, that the man of God may truly be equipped for every good work.

May your name be blessed as we come to bless you. In Jesus' name we pray. Amen. Again, as you guys know, 2 Timothy, as we continue to study, is being written to Apostle Paul's disciple. And the environment in 2 Timothy is very different than the environment that he wrote his first letter, even though not a whole lot of years have passed by.

The first letter that he writes in prison to the Philippians, there is a tinge of hope. In fact, he says he's confident he's going to come out. The result of the persecution, more Christians have become more bold to preach the gospel. Yet here in 2 Timothy, the persecution has intensified.

There's been confusion of doctrine in the church of Ephesus. And most likely Nero has kind of revered up the persecution and people are actually being executed. And Paul being one of the first, being the leaders, and eventually Peter will be caught. And every one of the disciples will be caught and some way or another will be executed.

And so Timothy and the other companions of Paul are beginning to backslide. Some of them are beginning to go back. In Timothy, again, there's danger of him becoming timid and afraid. You know, whenever we run into some kind of crisis in our life, whether it's an individual crisis or a crisis in the church, it causes us to re-look at everything.

So sometimes you would get sick, and I'm talking about serious illness that comes into your life, and then you take a step back and you begin to evaluate how you spend your time, how you spend your money, your outlook on life. What am I pursuing? Is this right to pursue, not to pursue?

And so that causes us to have a change in paradigm, and oftentimes it kind of brings a new trajectory in our life. That happens even in the church. Certain things happen, and we want it to be a certain way, and it is not, and it causes a crisis, and this crisis causes us to re-examine the church, re-examine what we do.

I remember in the late '80s and early '90s, there was a crisis in the church because almost weekly, monthly, there was something being written about how the church is failing. And there were statistics coming out left and right. For every two people convert, three people are backsliding. And in particular, within the Southern Baptist denomination, they were saying that the churches were closing faster than they were being reproduced.

And in particular with the younger generation. The younger generation, they said the statistic was, they graduate high school, by the time they go through college and get to young adult, anywhere between 40 to as high as 87 to 90% were walking away from their faith. And so churches are closing down.

The gospel is not being effective. And so everybody's scrambling to, what are we doing? Maybe the traditional way of doing ministry isn't working. And all of a sudden, we start hearing these rumors about this one particular church, which I'm not going to name, of how they're being effective in reaching the young people.

And how this church is growing in mass numbers. Thousands and thousands of them are coming. And so all of a sudden, all the church growth, church planters, started to study this particular church. And then they began to model that church and started to teach this in seminary. And started to teach the young pastors who are being trained in seminary, that this is what we ought to do.

If we want to be effective, we have to follow this model. And this model that I'm talking about is the modern day church growth movement. It's the seeker-friendly movement. And that movement came out of a crisis in the church. Because very few people were evangelizing. We weren't reproducing. The churches are falling out.

The pastors are--we're getting news about pastors, one scandal after another. And so in this crisis, it kind of caused the church to take a step back and look at it and say, "What are we doing different?" Now, that's been over 20 years since that movement came in. And I remember first time hearing about this, there was a lot of debate.

And I remember learning about this in seminary. And I was listening to--my first reaction to that was, "Well, if we need to do everything in our power to get the gospel out, and whatever they choose to do, at least that's better than nothing." That was my initial response to that.

But now that 20-some years have passed, and we're looking at this modern day movement, definitely our paradigm in the last 20, 25 years, you could see the radical shift where we've turned to pragmatism. What works and what doesn't work? Here's a problem. How do we deal with it? Well, what did they do?

Well, they did this, so we're going to apply that to this church. Well, here's a problem at this church. Well, how did this church deal with it? So we're going to go over there, and they'll have this church organized this way, so we're going to apply that here. And that type of thinking has permeated into the way that we do church.

Everything we do is, "Well, here's a problem. How do we solve it? That church solved it. This is how we ought to solve it." But the problem with that method is, there is an overemphasis on human methodology, thinking that every problem that we run into in the church can be easily solved if we apply the right method and right organization.

But, you know, as a young pastor, when I first started ministering in my 20s, part of the reason why I was so tempted to quit is because I tried everything. I tried discipleship. I tried one time even shaving my head, saying, "I'm not going to grow my hair until revival comes." Then after a while, the hair started growing out, and I didn't cut it.

I tried everything. I said, "Well, maybe we'll take them out on the streets and go street preaching." Now to kind of shake them up and make them love Christ and discipleship. And we tried everything, and in the end, I felt like I wasn't getting anywhere. So I started thinking to myself that maybe I just don't know what I'm doing.

I thought all I had to do was preach the Word of God and be passionate in prayer and cling to Him, and that was it. But when I started doing ministry, it started to seem like that isn't enough. So I started thinking to myself, "Maybe I need to go back to school and get a degree in accounting or business so I can learn how to organize a church.

Maybe I need to go get a psychology degree so I can learn how to counsel people and help people out of different issues." But I felt so defeated. I felt so ill-equipped. But in that context, there was one thing that I observed. Again, it wasn't through preaching. It wasn't through reading of a book.

It was just an observation that I was making through the years of struggling. And that observation was the people that I saw consistently persevering. And every single one of them had one thing in common, and that one thing was they loved the Word of God. Now they weren't all conservative.

Some of them were charismatic. Some of them were from different persuasions. But every single person that I saw, not just one year, not just coming back from a retreat or going to a summer mission and coming back and saying, "Yeah, I want to do this for God." But consistently throughout the years, there's one thing that was consistent.

They all loved the Word of God. They all had a self-motivated interest in learning God's Word. And that probably is one of the most important lessons I learned as a pastor and as a Christian, to stick to His Word. And here's a passage that, again, I quote quite a bit, but that I quote to myself often because I need to be reminded of this.

In Isaiah 55, 10 through 11, it says, "For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there, but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth.

It shall not return to me empty; it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it." The reason why I quote this passage to myself so often is because I don't see the result of the Word of God often with my eyes and with my perception.

Because I imagine that the Word of God would bear fruit in this way. And so when it doesn't happen that way, I start to think, "Maybe this is not effective." See, what the Word of God clearly says, that God sends his Word, and it will not return until it has accomplished its purpose.

Now, that purpose is not always what you think. Because oftentimes, God sent his Word to harden people's hearts. Remember Isaiah? After showing him a vision of his glory? You know, he's seen a magnificent picture of our holy, holy, holy God. And then he says, "Who's going to go for me and speak on my behalf?" And he says, "Here am I.

Send me." And then when he volunteers, what does God say? "Go to these people, these Israelites, these stiff-necked people. They're not going to listen to you, but go tell them what I have to say." Why send it to them? If they're not going to listen, what's the point? Well, there are times when God would send his Word to bring judgment to his natural conclusion.

Just like he did with Pharaoh. Pharaoh didn't take a guy who was submitted to him and then change his heart and then judged him. Here's a guy who was running the wrong path. It's just the Word of God goes forth and hardened his heart even further. So when the Word of God goes forth, even this morning, when the Word of God goes forth, it never returns without accomplishing its purpose.

Some of you will hear the Word of God, and your heart will be softened, and the Holy Spirit will speak and bring you closer to him. Some of you will hear the Word of God, and you say, "Wow, I've heard that." And you harden your heart. And every week that you hear the Word of God and you do not surrender to him, your heart becomes harder and harder and harder.

So by the time you've sat through service, year after year, maybe decade after decade, your heart becomes so hardened that the Word of God never penetrates. In fact, your condition a year from now will be much worse than it is now. If you happen to be in the presence where the Word of God is taught consistently and you're being exposed to what the Word of God says, and you continue to harden your heart, harden your heart, harden your heart, you will at one point come to a situation where even the greatest preacher of our generation comes and gives his best message, you will hear, "Wah, wah, wah, wah, wah." That's the first thing you're going to hear.

Because your ears have become dull. And you have to almost experience something shocking in order to have any kind of, "Oh, okay, I need to do that." One of the most important things that I had to learn as a pastor is that what God called me to do is to teach and to preach his Word faithfully, because that's what God has ordained.

In fact, look at the nation of Israel. There's one lesson. People look at the Old Testament and New Testament, there's so many different nuances. I don't understand the Word of God. I'll make it simple. The Word of God has one lesson. Obviously, there's a lot of sub-lessons in that lesson, but there's only one lesson.

And he teaches this one lesson consistently from generation to generation, from one covenant to the next. If you look at the nation of Israel, they're wandering in the desert for 40 years. Now, we know that they wandered in the desert as a result of their rebellion. They didn't believe in God, so God judged them, so they wandered in the desert.

But God had a hidden purpose, and that purpose is to prepare them to go into the Promised Land, to teach them this one lesson. Here's a nation that was born from a bunch of slaves, and then God was preparing them to go into the Promised Land. Now, they were going to go in immediately, but because they didn't believe God, they wandered in the desert for 40 years.

God was preparing them to conquer the Promised Land. Now, what did they learn in 40 years? For 40 years, God told them to march in order, to march in order. Let the Levites go, and then you have the next tribe and the next tribe. So they became expert marchers.

If anybody knew how to march, it was the Israelites, because they practiced this for 40 years. If you ever go to a country where they don't have a lot of opportunities, so whatever you do, you do for a long period of time. Like, if there's certain parts of China, like when we go there, and you see them flipping pancakes, man, they are experts.

Because that's all they have been doing for the last 30 years, they flip pancakes. Boom, they catch it in the back, flip it back, catch it, and it was like, we're amazed. Because we live in a society, we have so many opportunities, there's nothing we do for 30 years every single day, right?

We switch jobs, we get bored. But you go to certain parts of the world, whatever it is that they're doing, putting inscriptions on a little piece of rice, I mean, they're experts. Because that's what they've been doing for 30 years, right? Whatever you're doing for 30 years, you become an expert.

So what were the Israelites experts in doing? Marching. Okay, what else were they, what else was God doing with the people? Well, he had to put the tents in. Boom. 30 years, boom. So if you ever want to know how to set up a tent, ask the Israelites. They've been doing this for 30 years, right?

In fact, it wasn't even all the tents. Only a certain group of them could actually pound it in. And only a certain group of them could actually carry it. So these guys who pounded it in, they were experts at pounding in this pole, right? And then there was another group of people who were experts in carrying it over their shoulder.

And then there was another group that was expert in carrying the Ark of the Covenant, right? So every single one of them became experts in whatever they were doing for 30 years. They were expert campers. You want to know anything about camping? That's what they're experts in, right? They did it for 30 years.

They know how to camp. They know how to march. But what does any of that have to do with conquering this nation? In fact, at the end of that, what does God tell them to do? They're ready to go in to conquer. What does he do? Here's the only instruction that God gives the nation of Israel as they're about to enter into the Promised Land.

Joshua 1.7.9, "Only be strong and courageous, being careful to do according to all the law that Moses my servant commanded you. Do not turn from it to the right hand or to the left, that you may have good success wherever you go. This book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do according to all that is written in it.

For then you will make your way prosperous, and then you will have good success. Have not I commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened and do not be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go." Now you would think that, okay, we've wasted 40 years, right?

In 40 years they didn't learn how to shoot arrows, they didn't know how to defend themselves, and how to throw spears. They didn't learn any of that. They learned how to march, they learned how to put poles in, right? They learned how to camp. Well at least now that we're going, okay, we'll trust you, right?

And he says, "Just listen. Don't turn away from my word." Okay, so we're going to go in, so we're listening because this is the only thing you told us. What do you want us to do? What does God tell them to do? March. They know how to march. They've been doing that for 40 years.

March around the city of Jericho. So there's no question, it's like, okay, you told us to march for 40 years, we know how to do this. Picked it up, they marched. Second day, okay, you know, I don't get what you're doing, but what do we do the second day?

March again. So they march. They do this six times, right? On the seventh day, he said, "Okay, God says, today is the day. Today is the day where I'm going to anoint you and you're going to conquer this city. Okay, now, okay, now we've been doing this silly thing about walking around.

What do we do on the seventh day?" Now, on the seventh day, do it seven times. Seven times. And you know exactly what happens. On the seventh time, they turn around, they carry this Ark of the Covenant, and what happens? The wall just crumbles. And they walk in, they don't even have to fight.

They walk in and they conquer. What was God trying to teach the nation of Israel? In fact, if you read the book of Numbers, and again, years ago, I remember preaching through the Old Testament, and we got through Leviticus, and I really wasn't looking forward to preaching through Leviticus, for obvious reasons.

I would just, I would just, that's not a book that I was very familiar with. But I gained so much. And the more patient you are, and the more you dig in the book of Leviticus, you see so much of it connected to Christ and the Gospel. But Numbers, right, what do you connect?

Like 12,000, 144,000, 18,000, like, and it over and over again, it gives you the count of the nation of Israel. This tribe had this many people, and these are the people, and you just have genealogy over and over again. So what am I going to get out of this, right?

In fact, Numbers was the book that really kind of shook me, because it was so clear what God was doing with the nation of Israel. See, Numbers, the reason why they count, basically, they enter into the desert with 600,000 people. They exit out of the desert with 600,000 people.

But if you pay attention to the list carefully, you will notice that the number in each tribe either goes up or comes down. So some of the tribes who enter, entered in a pretty big tribe, they come out of it almost depleted in half or even more. And then there are some tribes that come in, a tiny little tribe, and they come back almost doubled, more than doubled.

But the total number stays the same. And the reason why this is significant is based upon how well they kept the Word of God, how obedient they were, that their inheritance, when they got to the Promised Land, was given to them. So there is this one particular tribe, the Simeonites, because they were disobedient, almost half of them were slaughtered, 24,000 of them were slaughtered.

By the time they come to the Promised Land, their tribe is so small, they don't even get their own land. They get a little piece of land within the land of Judah. Now, there's a lot more to the Book of Numbers than that, but the whole purpose of the Book of Numbers is to teach the nation of Israel the same thing that he was teaching the nation of Israel in Joshua 1, 7, 8, 9.

"Do not turn from my Word to the left or to the right." If you want to be successful, "Do not turn from my Word to the left or to the right." And the reason why I say this is that whenever there is some kind of a crisis, whether there's a personal spiritual crisis, or there is a crisis in the church, we have a tendency to start looking out to see, maybe we've missed something.

Maybe there's something happening in that church, or this church, or over there, and if we adopt what they're doing and do it here, that we would have the same success. But the Word of God is absolutely crystal clear. "Do not turn from my Word to the left or to the right." Paul says in the later passage in 2 Timothy, to preach the Word in season and out of season.

In other words, what Paul is saying, preach it when people respond, preach it when they don't respond. Preach it when you bear fruit, preach it when they don't bear fruit, because there will never be a time when the Word of God will go forth and will return without accomplishing God's purpose.

See, Paul is writing to Timothy because right now it seems like it's not in season. When Paul wrote his first letter in Philippi, when he was in prison, it was exciting. Even though he was in prison, Paul says, "I know I'm going to come out, because there's still more work to do." And he says, "Because of my chains, more people have gotten confidence to preach the Word of God boldly." So even in the midst of persecution, it was like, you know, they were like rock stars.

They were going to a city and preach, and people heard about them. These are the guys who were coming, Paul and his companions, who were flipping the world upside down with his preaching about Jesus. So, I mean, imagine how exciting that would be, to be a part of that team, going from city to city, experiencing some persecution, planting churches, leaders of synagogues coming to Christ, people of prominence, people who are poor.

I mean, they're coming to you and they say, "What do we do about this?" I mean, that was exciting. Right now, Paul is writing, and the persecution has increased. Now the persecution is not coming from the Jews, it's coming from the Roman Empire now. Now the Gentiles, who have real authority, real power, are starting to go after them, and that's exactly what happens.

Paul is one of the first who gets captured. Then Peter will get captured. Then every one of the apostles will be captured. Eventually, Timothy will be captured, and Barnabas will be captured. And every single one of them that we see in the New Testament, being faithful, majority of them are martyred for their faith.

And so on the surface, we may look at that and say, "You know what? It's no longer popular. Maybe what we've been doing doesn't work. You know, in the past, we were going into the city, and people were responding. Now we go in, we get stoned, we get put into jail, and we die." That's the reason why Paul is telling Timothy to continue where you've come from.

Remember we talked about that last week? You know, we're always looking for new things, but what does Paul say? "Continue. Remember. Remember where you came from. Remember how you got the Word, and continue," he says, "to continue." Remember when Jesus was leaving the disciples, and the disciples were saying, "You know what?

We were dependent upon you. You know, the Pharisees came, and they hated you, but as long as we were with you, we were safe. What are we going to do once you leave?" Remember what Jesus said? Same thing that God's been telling the nation of Israel. "If you want to bear fruit, abide in Me.

I am not leaving you as orphans. When I go, the Holy Spirit's going to come, and He's going to remind you of everything that I've said, and through Him, I want you to remain in Me. Continue to remain in Me. Your success is dependent upon whether you remain in Me or not.

Not how smart you are, not the new methods, not trying to apply new things and new organizations, but how closely you remain with Him." Isn't that exactly what God's been teaching the nation of Israel? What were they learning in the 40 years marching out in the desert? If I tell you to stop, you stop.

If I tell you to get up, you get up. If I tell you to get in line, you get in line. If I say, "You touch the pole, but not you," listen to what I say. What were they being trained to do? To abide in Him, to listen to Him.

And is it any different in the New Testament? It is not. Same preaching of the Word of God. I've been preaching long enough to know that there are times that I will preach the exact same sermon, and people will respond and repent and come to Christ. And there were periods when I would preach the exact same sermon, and people would say, "What is that?

You can't preach like that. No one's going to come to your church if you do that." But the Word of God, He says, "That's what God has ordained." If we're going to bear fruit, if we're going to be servants of God, you must first and foremost have confidence and conviction that this is what God has ordained.

Not my method, not my cleverness, not my education, not your money, but the Word of God. And that's why that Paul is telling Timothy, "You continue." That's how Jesus described ministry as spreading seed. What's the seed? The Word of God. And sometimes the Word of God will go forth, and they're not going to respond.

It's going to fall on rocky soil, and then the devil's going to come pick it up. But yet, you preach the Word of God. Sometimes the Word of God is going to be spread, and then it's going to seem like it's going to bear fruit, but because there's no foundation, it's going to wither and die.

But you keep preaching the Word of God. It keeps spreading. Sometimes you're going to spread the Word of God, and it's going to seem like there's some response, but as soon as hardship comes and difficulty comes, people wither. But you keep preaching the Word of God. Isn't that what Jesus said?

Some are going to reject you. Some are going to seem like they're going to receive you, but a few will receive it, and they will bear fruit 30, 60, 100-fold. Isn't that exactly what Paul said, how he described his ministry? He said, "I planted." "Apollos watered." But ultimately, God makes it grow.

"I can't. It's not up to me or you to cause things to grow." He says, "To plant, to water." Let people be exposed to what the Word of God says, and let God do what he had intended to do. See, when we have a spiritual crisis, we automatically begin to think there's got to be something more.

You know, this church is about the Word of God, but I need something more. I need better friendship. Maybe if we had this one organization. Maybe if we had this and that, and we're looking for all these different things to cause us to come to Christ, but in the end, what God has ordained is, "You have the Word of God." What does he say about the Word of God?

It is able to make us wise for salvation. It is able to make us wise for salvation. Why do we need to cling to the Word of God? Because that's where salvation comes from. Remember John 6, chapter 666, when all the disciples, everybody who ate the miraculous food that Jesus gave them, the feeding of the 5,000, they had a hard time understanding what Jesus was saying, so they turned away.

Jesus asked his disciples, "Are you going to go too?" Remember what Peter says? Peter answered, "Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life." Where can we turn to? I might be able to go down and do business, and make more money, and buy the food, but if I want life, you have the words of life.

That's what caused his disciples to persevere with them. Not because they knew anything better than the other people, not because they were more noble than the other people. They believed that Jesus had the words of life. What keeps you coming to church? What causes you to persevere? Because the people are nice?

Because you've made some friends here, and you don't want to lose that? Or do you recognize that the word of God is life? In Romans 10, verse 17, it says, "For faith comes from hearing, and the hearing of the word of Christ." It's the word of Christ that you heard that caused you to live.

And it is human arrogance to think that we were absolutely dependent upon his mercy to be saved. The Bible says that we were dead in our trespasses. A dead person doesn't have a thought. A dead person doesn't have a will. A dead person doesn't have a plan. A dead person is just there until somebody resuscitates.

And that's what happened to all of us. That's how the Bible describes our salvation. And so if we were once dead and made alive because God had mercy on us, why do we all of a sudden think that if we apply different methods that we can resuscitate people? If we try different tricks, if we try different methods, different organization, that this will somehow bring more people to Christ?

The Bible says, "Preach the word in season and out of season." Some people will respond, and some people will not. But you will never do more than what God has ordained in the preaching of the word of God. You will never do more than that. We can always-- Again, there's nothing wrong with any of this stuff, but when we begin to think that somehow that is the answer, that's when we get into trouble.

See, I read a book several years ago about this Jewish professor who was backpacking in Europe. And as he was backpacking in Europe, the rain started coming, and he was by himself, and he saw through the window there's a bunch of people gathered together. He thought, "Maybe I'll run in here for a little bit, and if they would let me, I'll stay there for a little bit, and then when the rain stops, I'm going to go out." So he knocked on the door, and he went in, and he said, "Hey, come in.

You know, we're actually having a Bible study. You're more than welcome to sit in." So he said, "Okay, I'll sit here, you know, listen to these religious fanatics, you know, for a bit, and then I'll leave." He comes in, and they're having a Bible study, and they start reading Isaiah 53.

Now, he doesn't know. He doesn't have a Bible, and again, he's a nominal Jew, so he really didn't know his Old Testament. So when he heard Isaiah 53 being quoted, he immediately thought it was the New Testament, and he stopped him. He said, "Wait a second. You know, I told you I'm a Jew, and I know it's your Bible study, but I just need to let you know that to me it's offensive because I don't believe in the New Testament." To his surprise, one of the men in the Bible study said, "This was not the New Testament we quoted.

We quoted the Old Testament, Isaiah 53." He's like, "What? Clearly that has to be about Christ." And so he took the Bible. Sure enough, he read Isaiah 53, and it was in the Old Testament. And that whole book is about this testimony of his conversion and how he went back home, and it rocked his world.

And he started to read through the Bible, and he realized that Christ was in the Old Testament. And again, as a Jewish professor, and I tried so hard to look for that book yesterday, and I couldn't find it. If I find it, I'll bring it next week. But the whole testimony was about this man who was confronted with the truth of God's Word, and he was saved.

He says all Scripture is God-breathed, all of it. In Psalm 33, 6, "By the word of the Lord, the heavens were made, and by the breath of his mouth, all their hosts." The word all Scripture is God-breathed. Now, when we look at this passage and say, "Well, you say all Scripture," by the time Paul is writing this letter, there is no New Testament canon.

And some of you guys who may have studied church history a little bit will say, "You know, that happened in the Council of Carthage in 386 A.D., so that's not what Paul is referring to. He's probably referring only to the Old Testament." Well, if you--again, we're not going to do a whole study on this, but you'll notice that even in the writing of the New Testament, they already are receiving from the get-go that the letters that they are sending out and the letters they are receiving is already God's Word, Scripture.

I'm going to give you a couple of these. In 1 Timothy 5:18, Paul--again, just listen carefully. You don't need to turn there. 1 Timothy 5:18, Paul says, "For the Scripture says, 'You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out the grain, and the laborer deserves his wages.'" So Paul is quoting Scripture to talk about how people in ministry ought to be supported.

But if you look at that passage carefully, he quotes two passages. The first one, "You shall not muzzle an ox when it treads out," that passage comes from Deuteronomy 25, verse 4, which is the Old Testament. The second part of it where it says, "The laborer deserves his wages," is not in the Old Testament.

That's actually a direct quote from Luke 10, verse 7. That does not exist in the Old Testament. So in other words, Paul was quoting the Old and the New Testament, Luke 10, 7, equivalent to the Old Testament Scripture. So Paul was already recognizing that the canon is being written.

In fact, in 2 Peter 3.16, Peter talks about how people are distorting the Word of God, and he says, "As they do to many others," and he calls Paul's writing Scripture. So Peter recognizes. And when Paul oftentimes writes his letter and he sends it out, he says, "This comes with the authority of Christ," and he tells them to have it read in all the other churches.

This was not just simply a personal letter from him to that one particular church. He says, "This is meant to be read from church to church." And again, we can go on and on. 2 Corinthians 10.10, remember that passage where Paul says they're questioning his apostleship? And so they're saying, "You know, this guy, his letters are impressive.

It comes with much authority. It's strong. But when he comes in person, he is weak." And I think the reason why his letters were coming with such authority was because it was inspired by the breath of God. So his letters were coming with, "Thus saith the Lord." But when he showed up, he was a short, bald guy.

Apollos was a better speaker than him. So he says his letters come with authority, but this guy is not impressive because his letters were coming with the breath of God. See, when we're talking about the breath of God, because literally that's what it means, that God breathed out his word.

The image that I get is the image of resuscitation. If somebody has a heart attack, what is the first thing that we do? CPR, right? We do CPR, and then we do mouth-to-mouth. And the reason why we're taught mouth-to-mouth is to have your breath go into that person so that they can breathe.

That's the image that we see in Scripture, where God has put his breath into the word of God so that those who are dead in their trespasses may be exposed to his breath, and his breath resuscitates you, opens your eyes, and revives you. And that's why he tells his church not to stray away from this, because the power of you going out and evangelizing is not your method.

It's like, "Oh, we need to be better trained to do this. We need to be better trained out in China. We need to be better trained out on campus." In the end, the core of what God has given us is his word. And then, again, the danger is when we get into ministry and try to bear fruit, it's like, "Oh, it's not bearing fruit the way that we want it to bear fruit." And then we start to think, "Okay, maybe there's something else.

Maybe it's the organization. Maybe it's the music. If we had more contemporary music, more people will come. Maybe if we had worship earlier or later. Maybe if we had home Bible study instead of church Bible study. Maybe if we did evangelism. Maybe if we went to China or India or somewhere else.

Maybe if we did all of these things, that somehow this is going to bring revival, and it's going to produce what we want. And that is a danger that we get into where we begin to think that if we apply different methods that other people have done, that somehow we're going to be more successful.

When the lesson in the Bible is clear, do not turn from the Word of God to the left or to the right. This is His very breath. If you and I got saved, because we're completely helpless, and the Word of God came, and that's exactly what God has ordained to bring people to Christ.

He said, "My sheep, they hear My voice, and they will follow Me." See, when we use methods, they'll come to the church. When you use programs and do all this, they'll say, "Oh, this church has all this program." And they'll have confidence in the program. You know, when you, "Oh, if you preach this way, if you organize this way," they're going to say, "That church, I like this church because this church is this way, because the people are nice, and because that." And they will be attracted to the people.

They will be attracted to the program. They will be attracted to whatever it is, the organization you have. They will not be attracted to Christ. "To My sheep, they will hear My voice, and they will follow Me." And that's why he tells Paul. Paul tells Timothy to continue in this.

And I'm going to do one more thing before we open up the communion table. He says, "Because it is profitable for teaching." Now, I'm going to do this one, and I'm going to save the rest for next time. For teaching. The word for teaching in the Greek, there's two different words.

There's didache and didaskalia. Didache is the main word that is used to talk about a set of truth, doctrine. Didaskalia is the act of teaching, instructing. So if you notice that in their translations, if you have the King James or New King James, it says it is profitable for doctrine.

If you have NASV, NIV, ESV, majority of your translations will say it is profitable for teaching. And the reason why it's that is because majority of the translators believe that this word is not referring to a set of doctrine. Of course, if you want to know what to believe as a Christian, of course you have to come to the Word of God.

But the word that is used here is not didache, but didaskalia. And the word didaskalia basically means the act of instructing. The act of disciple making. And what that means is, he's not referring to just your thinking. The Word of God is profitable. Because that's the way I understood it for years.

That if you want to know the truth, the Word of God, you have to study the Word of God. You have to dissect the Word of God. And all of a sudden you have these truths. And that's why you go to seminary, to understand these truths. And if you know these truths, and you're able to disseminate these truths, then you are equipped for every good work.

And that's, again, that's what I thought this meant. But that's not what this word means at all. The word teaching is, when he says at the end of this, in verse 17, he said, "All of this, for teaching, for reproof, for correcting, for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work." Now, this is directly linked to our ordination today.

In our church, we don't ordain people because they got a degree. Or because they're skilled, necessarily, in particular things. Because the scripture doesn't give that as a criteria. Ultimately. If you look at the criteria of an elder or a deacon, it's all character. Who they are. And so, when he's talking about scripture, training you, teaching you, rebuking you, correcting you for the work, for good works, he's talking about a man who has been deeply affected by the Word of God.

The teaching that he's talking about, instruction, Psalm 32, verse 8, the Word of God is a lamp unto our path. It instructs us on how we ought to live. In Romans 12, 2, the Word of God causes us to think, change the paradigm. So, not only instructs us our life, it instructs the way we think.

And then in Hebrews chapter 4, 12, it instructs our thinking and our heart. The Word of God is living act to sharpen any double-edged sword, is able to judge, divide between bone and marrow, between spirit and soul, and is able to judge the thoughts and intentions of our hearts.

So, the Word of God, the instruction, gives all of it. Not just the way we live, not just the way we think, but the way we feel. So, when he's talking about the Word of God is useful, profitable for instruction, he's talking about to make a man the way God desires him to be.

So, when the Bible says that the calling of an elder, that he has all these inner qualities, and he's able to teach, able to teach is not just referring to, does he have knowledge and can he disseminate this knowledge? Anybody who can talk can do that. Right? I mean, all of you have studied.

You've studied just as much as any seminary student does. Right? You get a degree in medicine and law. You know, some of you guys have probably studied much more than any seminary students will have. Right? Anybody who can study and memorize and can talk a little bit, right, can talk.

That's not what he's talking about. He's talking about an individual who has been, who has been exposed to the breath of God and who has been sanctified. They have been rebuked, have been corrected. Because I can say the right things, but if my heart is wrong, I could be dead wrong.

Preaching the word of God is not just disseminating information. It's speaking with the heart of God, speaking with the mind of God, speaking with the life of God. And that's why he says the word of God is profitable for all of these things. Again, I'm going to wrap this up, and we're going to open up the communion table this morning.

Again, there are times, there are seasons, when what we're doing here is just not going to be popular. And I've seen it. Again, I haven't lived long, but I've been in ministry long enough to know that I can do the exact same thing, and it was so effective 15 years ago and is not effective today.

And then there are some certain things that, you know, it's just like people could care less. And all of a sudden, there's an appetite. When we first started this church, there was no appetite for God's word. There was no appetite, because people would come to me, and say, "Peter, your preaching is, eh." You know, I remember the earlier, the younger ones in our church, and they were just bored out of their mind, because on Friday nights, all we did was exposit the Book of Romans.

And they said, "How come we're not playing tennis? How come we're not--" I don't have time, you know, so I only have time to do one thing a week and one thing on Sunday. So we're going to get into the Word of God, and we're going to teach the Word of God.

So if I did New Testament on Friday, we're going to do Old Testament on Sunday. And that was it. Not popular at all. People would come, and everything was cutting edge. You know, it's like, "Oh, that church is doing this, and that church is growing, and your church is not growing, because you're not doing this, and you're not doing that." And I, again, by that time, I've already been in ministry long enough to know that whatever that produces, I don't want it.

Even if it causes the church to grow, I don't want it, because I grew up in a pastor's family. I know what it's like to be in a--even in a large church that's not healthy, you know. So if you have more people at church who are there for the wrong reason, you have more people complaining.

You have more drama. So I don't want it. Why would you want that? Why would I want to be a pastor over that? So I say, even if we don't grow, even if it's not popular, that's one thing I was convicted in. God gave us His Word. And whatever happens in the church, whether it grows or doesn't grow, whether we end up folding, it's going to happen because of the Word of God.

And I'm not going to turn from it to the left or to the right. That has not changed. And I don't believe it will ever change. Because the Word of God will not change. And so today, we may look at it and say, "Oh, there's an appetite. People want to come because they want to hear the Word of God.

Oh, it's not being taught." That may not be the case for the rest of our lives. It may come a time when doing exactly what we're doing now, people are going to say, "Ah, you're preaching too long. You shouldn't do that. Maybe if you tried this, maybe if you tried that." And I'm telling you now, it's not going to change.

And again, one, because I'm stubborn. I know I'm stubborn. Second, but more importantly, that's what the Word of God says. And so my desire for our church is the same. That you would recognize that the life is in His Word. That you don't come to church because you're attached to people.

I mean, that's great if you're attached to people. You don't come to church thinking like, "If we did this, we could do more of this." No. First and foremost, love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength by how? Coming to His Word. And don't think that you coming and hearing my Word is enough because you're always getting it second hand, right?

Imagine what kind of relationship I would have with my wife Esther if I had to constantly ask you, "What do you think? Why is she so angry today?" What kind of relationship do you think I'll have with her if I have to ask you, right? "What's going on with Esther?" You know, "What's going on?" "Can you tell her I don't like that?" What kind of relationship would I have if everything, every communication, every relationship I had, I have to go through somebody else?

And there's nothing wrong with it. There's nothing wrong with you receiving, but if that's the only feeding that you get, that's the kind of relationship that you're going to have. So I encourage you, come to the Word of God. This is supplemental. This is encouragement for you to come to the Word of God and hear from Him directly and not turn from it to the left or to the right.