1.
Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Heavenly
Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.
Amen. This is the fourth in a
series of sermons on how God makes himself known to us. God makes himself known
through natural revelation and special revelation. Natural revelation is
evident in both the natural order and our human conscience. But it’s inadequate
to serve God’s love and forgiveness. That comes only through two special
revelations—his Son, Jesus, and the Holy Scriptures. Today we look at 2 Timothy
3:14-17, the sermon is entitled, “What Do
You Know About God—Through Scripture,” dear brothers and sisters in Christ.
2.
Last week I noted that Jesus Christ is God’s
self-portrait in human flesh. In Jesus, God reveals himself as a living
picture. The Bible is the frame in which the portrait of God comes to us. The
Bible is a rich frame of the experiences of those who walked and talked and
even wrestled with God. It’s through that frame that we have a living encounter
with God. By reading the experiences of those who knew the Lord face to face,
we can see what they saw.
3.
In our text, Paul reminds Timothy both of his
experience and its connection with God’s written Word in Scripture. In 2
Timothy 3:14-15, he calls Timothy to stay faithful to what he has learned. He
had been taught about Jesus Christ by Paul and by his own mother and
grandmother through the Scriptures, the Old Testament. Even the Old Testament
is able to make a person “wise for
salvation through faith in Jesus Christ.” The Gospel in the Scripture gives
Christians the power to stay faithful. Scripture is “God-breathed” and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and
training the person who wants to be thoroughly equipped for doing what God
wants. The Bible helps Christians grow in the faith.
4.
One summer a young man worked for a paint company,
part of his training was to memorize instructions contained in a big, yellow,
three-ring binder on painting and decorating projects. The young man was
expected to take it home, learn it, and then be able to answer people’s
questions about kinds of paint, surface preparation, wallpaper, etc. One day a woman, who needed to refinish her
hardwood floor, came into the store. The young man knew his manual, so he told
her what she needed. He also told her it was a big project and she should be
aware of what she was getting into. She said, “Have you ever done this yourself?” The young man told her no, but he
had his manual that told her how to do the project. She came back two weeks later and said, “You were right. My floor looks great, you
told me the right way to do it, and when I did it right, it worked. You were
also right about it being hard. One week ago today I was sitting in the middle
of my floor crying because I thought I would never get through the job.” She
went on to tell the young man that at first she didn’t get all the old finish
off and that made the new finish bubble, so she had to do it over. She learned
something and so did the young man. There was truth in his manual, but he had
not experienced it. The young man learned from her what can go wrong and where
encouragement might be needed to avoid problems.
5.
Paul asks Timothy and us to learn from the Bible. The
most important thing we can learn from the Scripture is that our salvation is
by grace through faith in Jesus Christ. When we meet Jesus in the Bible; we meet someone who not only knows his Father’s
will—but who has done it. He has done it for you.
6.
Paul tells us that the Bible can be used in four
different ways. First it teaches us. It
gives us what we need to know for salvation. What we need to know isn’t just a
set of dry facts; what we need to know is a
person. The Bible teaches us Jesus. It frames the living portrait of the Son of
God, who eats with sinners and blesses little children. It shows us the life of
a Savior giving up his life for others. It portrays the absolute truthfulness
of a Lord who says that he forgives us.
7.
The teaching of the Bible is like patient education. Today,
when we go to the hospital, we are educated. We get pamphlets and see
videotapes. We’re lectured by nurses and doctors and social workers. Part of our
healing will be learning about our condition and about the procedures that will
make, and keep, us well. That way we learn to trust those who will care for us.
In the same way the Bible educates us about our sinful condition. Jesus tells us in Mark 2:17, “It’s not the healthy who need a doctor, but
the sick. I have not come to call the
righteous, but sinners.” We learn from the Bible what’s wrong and what will
cure our souls. Most of all, we learn to trust the One who cures us—Jesus, the
greatest physician of all.
8.
The Bible teaches us, but it also rebukes us. When it shows us what is wrong, it also rebukes our
desire to stay that way. It rebukes our refusal to acknowledge that there is
anything wrong with our way of living. Like its teaching, the rebuke it gives
is an encounter with a picture. We are rebuked by a portrait of what we are
supposed to be. In the Law we see everything we should be and aren’t. In Jesus
we see what God has done for our salvation. Looking at the Law, all our
deficiencies are clear. The Law confronts us with the way we should be. The
Gospel, however, tells us what Christ has made us through his blood—forgiven,
holy in his sight.
9.
Scripture also corrects
us. It corrects our errors. It constantly reminds us not to worship our own
ideas of what God should be, but to worship God. It is a constant reference on
what we think and believe about everything that is important. Most of all, it
corrects our picture of Jesus. It’s easy to make Jesus look like we want him
to. But the Bible keeps our picture of Jesus true to who he really is. Reading
the Bible is like a spell-checker for our faith. It picks out the places where
we’ve gone wrong and replaces it with what is true. The Bible keeps our faith
centered on Jesus.
10.
The Bible teaches, rebukes, corrects, and trains us in righteousness. It’s not a
theoretical training manual. It’s not just a book about Jesus. It is Jesus speaking to us, calling us, transforming
us, and empowering us, to live like he lived. When we study the Bible, we
aren’t just absorbing a theory. When we look into Scripture, we are called to
put God’s truth into practice. The Bible brings us into a relationship with
someone who loves us and died for us. The power of the Gospel, which comes to us
through the Word and Sacrament, strengthens us and sustains us. The Bible tells
us about God’s Law. But more importantly, it tells us how Jesus kept that Law
for us.
11.
The Bible is the place where life comes together.
Bible study is a frame for seeing life like God intended it. The training that
comes from the Bible is the training of example. In Scripture God places before
us the perfect example of living. That example is Jesus (1 Pet 2:21). And
seeing him is what we need most if we are going to live like he asks. But he is
more than an example. In the salvation he earned for us he also remakes us in
his image and gives us the power to live a Christlike life (Rom 6:1–14).
12.
My boys Eddie & Marty have learned to read over
the years at Christ Lutheran School. That fills me with joy, because reading is
one of the deepest pleasures of my life. A good book can give me hours of
happiness. I want that same happiness for my children. Eddie & Marty
learned because they were taught, rebuked, corrected, and trained. Their
teachers taught them what sounds the letters make. Eddie & Marty were
gently rebuked when they pretended they knew it. As they learned, their teachers
corrected their pronunciation and explained words they didn’t know. What Eddie & Marty needed most, however,
was the example. They saw my wife and I reading. They heard us read aloud to them.
Eddie & Marty saw there’s a wonderful mystery in this business of learning
to read. And following that example, they learned to read.
13.
One of the books we read at home is the Bible. Eddie
& Marty can read a children’s Bible now. More than anything else, I want them
to have, not just the joy of reading, but the joy of reading the book in which they
meet their Lord and Savior Jesus, who went to Calvary for them and blesses them
with the power of a new life.
14.
Jesus forgives our sins and makes us his disciples. He
teaches, rebukes, corrects, and sets an example to show us what really makes
living good. But most importantly, he shed his precious blood on the cross so
that we could live a new life in him. When we live in him, we are led by his
power to reflect the picture we see of him in Scripture. And Jesus himself is
filled with joy. When he sees our noses in his book, and our lives painted by
his grace, then he rejoices in us. I
pray that, by his grace, our lives may reflect his portrait as God gave it to
us in the Bible. May the painting of that portrait bring everlasting joy for
both us and our Lord. Amen. Now may
the peace that passes all understanding, guard your hearts and minds in Christ
Jesus, until live everlasting. Amen.
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