The Power of the Word
Belgic Confession • Sermon • Submitted
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You, however, have followed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness, my persecutions and sufferings that happened to me at Antioch, at Iconium, and at Lystra—which persecutions I endured; yet from them all the Lord rescued me. Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted, while evil people and impostors will go on from bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived. But as 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 complete, equipped for every good work.
I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom: preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths. As for you, always be sober-minded, endure suffering, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry.
Scripture: 2 Timothy 3:10-4:5
Belgic Confession Lesson: Articles 5-6
Sermon Title: The Power of the Word
Last time we were looking at the Belgic Confession, you may remember that we were looking at what the Bible is. Article 2 lays out that the Word is how God reveals himself more clearly for his glory and our salvation. When we came to Articles 3 and 4, I shared how the Bible came to exist in the form we have it today, and how God gives it to shine a light for us. We also considered how even though humans wrote these words, their origin is not primarily of man’s will, but of God’s. So with the help of the Holy Spirit, we can trust and treasure that this is God’s word.
Article 4 also lays the 66 books of the Bible, the canon that most of us have likely grown up with having in the pews and in our homes. We read together earlier, “These only [do we receive] as holy and canonical.” What that tells us then is that there are books and writings, which have not made the cut, so to say.
Throughout the early church, there were other writings that were considered, but were not included in this canon. Some were writings with false teachings and legends that do not do much to encourage faith that have been completely dismissed. But there are others that might agree with the teachings of Scripture, but are not believed to be inspired by God in the same way. On the back of your handouts, you can see 14 books in Article 6 that fall into that category. Some versions of the Bible include those, and you find them more often in Catholic, Episcopal, and other traditions in a separate section of the Bible. They are usually listed either as Apocrypha, or Deuterocanonical. That means they are a second rule, or second tier when it comes to Scripture. These books are not to be received with the same weight and authority, which come out of the inspiration of God. But let’s look at the second part of Article 6 for more about these. //
You have heard me use the word authority and the title of this message includes the word power. Where I am intending to go tonight as we look at a familiar passage in 2 Timothy is to consider what the Bible is for. What are we as leaders and laypeople authorized to do by and with Scripture? Article 5 said the canonical books are “for the regulating, founding, and establishing of our faith.” As we read from 2 Timothy, we will build on that understanding.
Brothers and sisters in Christ, when I was growing up, reading books was one of my hobbies. I learned to read and read quickly early on. While I enjoy and love sports, I knew my talent and commitment was limited at playing competitively. That was fine with me, though. I never really minded spending time by myself, especially with a good book.
During my grade school years then, going to the library was a weekly trip for me—whether that was the big public library in town, or the one in our church basement or at school. I read from “The Boxcar Children” series, “Clue Jr.,” “The Hardy Boys,” the “Left Behind” young adult and adult series. I enjoyed sports’ related books that Matt Christopher wrote and the “The Incredible Worlds of Wally McDoogle” by Bill Myers. I could go on and on with ones I really enjoyed. I don’t read as much now, but if I do it’s usually a fiction book related to crimes or the justice system from Grisham, or some action-packed military-related book by Clive Cussler or Tom Clancy.
Thinking about reading and all the different genres that exist, people read for a variety of reasons. For some it is mainly for inspiration. People read to get a quote that they can remember and reflect on, and find ways to apply it to their worldview. Those who greatly enjoy poetry tend to be able to do that. But what draws me into these different kinds of books is that I can imagine, I can picture in my mind what is unfolding through words. The setting, the people, the conversations, it is as if they are actually happening. Reading like this, it allows me to access a different person, possibly in a different time and place, than what I can experience. I enjoy a book that can provide me with a perspective of someone that lives a different life than me.
Good authors can do that—they can provide details that enable a book to be much more than simply words printed on a whole bunch of pages bound together. I think if we were to poll a group of people that enjoy reading, this would be among the top reasons. Reading is enjoyable because it gives us a story to enjoy.
I say all this not just to inform you that I like reading or to encourage more library visits. But because it is important to distinguish how we read the Bible from how we read other books. As believers, we cannot just read the Bible to enjoy the events that it tells about. The Bible is meant to move us and be used for particular purposes. In Paul’s letter to Timothy, we find three things in particular that the Bible is for that want to look deeper at tonight.
First of all, as we find in verse 15, “the holy Scriptures…are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.” Now Article 7 of the Belgic Confession goes deeper on this matter of the sufficiency of Scripture, but we will deal with briefly tonight. When we or anyone else reads the Bible, in doing so, we can certainly find joy and pleasure in what is revealed about God, and what he has done for us. That’s not just true of the Gospels, when Jesus was on this earth as a man, but that is all of Scripture. Even just thinking about the Old Testament, the importance of reading the first five books of the Bible, the Pentateuch, and the narrative books which tell us the history, and the wisdom and prophetic books is that they point us to Jesus Christ. All of them set up the account of what God is doing, how he planned to rescue his people.
We encounter role models in these books. We come face to face with horrible tragedies, but also celebrations, with victories but also failures. We see the people trying to trust themselves, their leaders, and other gods, but every time we see that they must trust in God. There are action-packed and suspenseful stories, as well as romantic readings. Yet in all of this, the primary purpose of Scripture is not simply that you would enjoy or inspired by how wonderful it is—but the primary purpose is that we would see God’s plan for salvation and what is necessary for us to do or be engaged in to be saved.
In that pursuit, the only Savior of humanity and of our world is Jesus. With that in mind, the Bible is not really intended as a nice book that any person can mine some little gem from. No, the Bible tells an exclusive story. This is the only way. Many people today read novels with heroes and heroines, and comic books with superheroes—people that might save others or sacrifice themselves for the sake of the greater good. Yet the Holy Scriptures tend to real people in the real world, and these writings tell us, there is only one true hero, one Savior—we must believe in him as is laid out over the course of these pages. This is why evangelistic ministries, like Campus Crusade or the Navigators put such an emphasis on know their Bibles—if you don’t know Scripture, then you can’t tell someone about Jesus.
And yet, knowing Christ is not the concluding accomplishment of the Christian’s life and need for the Bible. 2 Timothy 3 verse 16 says, “All Scripture is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,” and we will add to this point from chapter 4 verse 2, the charge of encouragement. We have been especially mindful of this purpose of Scripture in Corsica over the last few weeks as we have been working our way through the rebukes in the book of Malachi. The second key purpose of Scripture is that once we have been saved by faith, we are called to practice right living as we find told in God’s Word.
Some might argue that this sounds like the Bible is just for rules. If you go to Cabela’s or the county offices, you can pick up manuals and handbooks distributed by Game, Fish, and Parks. They tell where we can and can’t go when we are hunting or fishing. They tell us when it is legal, what we must wear, how many we can legally harvest. I think it even encourages good conservation practices. We take a book like that, and we could say that teaches how to go about being a good sportsman or woman, that rebukes those who are out of line and corrects them; it trains them to do right in the future. Is the Bible just a much more extensive handbook?
In some ways, yes. When we consider the Ten Commandments, we find a list of what we should and should not be involved in. That list of rules is intended to show us God’s desire for his people. As the perfect and almighty God, as the one who created us, he has the right to tell us what to do. He has certain intentions for his creation, and how it works together. Thinking of what we read towards the end of the passage, in chapter 4 verse 3, there will be a time when the people will hear only what they want. The parts of Scripture that we do not like, that do correct us do not taste good—they are bitter, and yet we need them.
But as a teaching, correcting, rebuking, and encouraging tool, the Bible is much more than just a handbook of rules and procedures. God does not just want us to follow the right things, but to have our hearts changed. That final phrase of verse 16, “in righteousness,” is meant to be something that infiltrates us. We more and more will exhibit righteousness not just because we do the right things, but because the Spirit is changing who we are. As we read more and more of God’s will for creation, his constant care for us, what he has in store for eternity—we see that he wants us to have a fruitful existence—to enjoy him and what he has blessed us with.
The rules are not what save us. The corrections are not primarily to make us feel awful about our lives. But insofar as God has spoken and been the source of that which we find recorded in this book, we encounter the ways he is redeeming all parts of our lives when we read this book. He redeems us not just when our earthly lives have finished, but he is with us right now, leading us on the right path.
Finally tonight, we also see that Scripture holds the purpose that we find in verse 17—and this building upon the foundation of faith and righteousness: “The man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.” Why should we regularly be in the Word of God? What does it do for us? Well, it is not just to restrain us from doing things we might enjoy, but it equips us for doing good things.
Brothers and sisters, do we consider ourselves ready to do kingdom work? Ready to teach the gospel. Ready to show love. Ready to exercise grace. Ready to give God praise and thanks, and seek after his plan. If we are not, I encourage you to be in God’s word. The Bible is intended to equip us for doing good. But not just to give us a few of the tools and a little bit of insight, but that we would be thoroughly equipped. Other translations say that we would be perfect, that we would competent for every good work. We are only able to be equipped in this way if we have turned to the words that God has breathed out.
Again our calling is not just to stay away from bad things, but it is to do good and be ready to do good. For Timothy, the good work he was equipped for was a ministry of preaching and evangelism. For others of us though, our calling is in parenting and raising up our children in the Word in our homes. For some it is to be teachers, whether we have the ability to specifically teach the gospel in our classrooms or not. Others of us have ministries to our co-workers or friends or neighbors that we have developed relationships with. We are to be ready to do good in all of these different opportunities, not simply to shun that which we find to be evil and sinful.
But in order to do good—again, we have to be in the word ourselves. We have to allow God to use it to change us. As we read earlier, these books are for the regulating, founding, and establishing of our faith. In various ways, we can see all of those happening in each of these purposes that we have looked at tonight. So let us remember that we were not given this testimony and it should not be our only goal to be entertained or inspired when we read it, but may we see in God’s word what he has done and continues do as a means for the introducing and enriching of our faith, and of our walk with him. Amen.