The title of the message is why do we need the Bible. That's a question that I would expect to be asked from a child. Or maybe even a youth. But I am sure that there are adults out there that ask the same question.
Have you ever been to a symphony? You go into the auditorium and you grab a program, find your seat, and wait for the performance to begin. Gradually, one by one, the individual musicians start to enter the stage and take their seats. Then they start tuning up and warming up. And it ends up as a big commotion of sounds.
After a while, the conductor enters and takes his place on the podium and taps his baton. At the wave of his hand, the concert begins. The orchestra plays, and the result is a beautiful sound that you came to here.
In our world today, we live in a spiritual anarchy. Most people do what is right in their own eyes, rather than looking to any authority source to guide their actions. As believers, we can easily be confused with all of the competing beliefs and behaviors.
But God is telling us today that when we ground our lives on God's Word, we are following the conductor of the universe while playing the beautiful song He created us to play. We will be using the Apostle Paul's second letter to Timothy. Chapter 3 as our text today.
Prayer.
In this portion of Paul's letter, he addresses the topic of sin and how it can damage our lives. It is amazing to me that what the Apostle Paul wrote two thousand years ago describes our 21st century culture to a “T”.
2 Timothy 3:1-5 – “But know this: Hard times will come in the last days. 2 For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, proud, demeaning, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 unloving, irreconcilable, slanderers, without self-control, brutal, without love for what is good, 4 traitors, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5 holding to the form of godliness but denying its power. Avoid these people.”
Because of the original sin of Adam and Eve, sin is still in the hearts of every human today. We live in a time of spiritual anarchy. People do whatever is right in their own eyes. That is basically why sin exists today. Sin flourishes in our culture. But it should not surprise us.
Paul says that hard times will come in the last days. Usually we only think about the last days in terms of the end of the world. But the last days is a Scriptural phrase identifying the era between the church's beginning and Jesus's return. That is now. These are the last days. So, whether we live in the first century or the twenty first century, Christians have always experienced difficulties when sin is around. As Christians, would you agree that we live in a culture that conflicts with God's Word?
Phrase by phrase, we can recognize the sins that Paul spells out:
- People are self centered. They look out for themselves above anything else.
- People are materialist. They do what's necessary to keep up with their neighbors.
- People are arrogant and proud. A simple scroll through your social media news feed highlights people's self-righteous and self- serving character.
- People are demeaning, irreconcilable, slanderous, and simply unloving toward others. We especially see that now during the political campaigns.
- People love the pleasures of this world more than the pleasures of God.
- Even spiritual leaders are deceiving us.
Sin is everywhere in our culture today because sin thrives in every human heart. People want to march to the rhythm of their own drum, but they don't see how damaging their self-reliance can be.
We hurt ourselves by our behavior and far too often we hurt others as well. Without God, humanity is like a giant orchestra where everyone plays his or her own song while following worldly conductors of their own choosing.
God's Word speaks with power and practicality to everything you are facing, thinking, and feeling right now. If you are one that feels like God is so distant to you at this very moment, God just wants you to know that He is actually very near and very active.
2 Timothy 3:13 – “Evil people and impostors will become worse, deceiving and being deceived.”
What Paul is saying is that corrupt people are deceived thinking they know what is right when they don't. But to make matters worse, they don't keep their deception to themselves. They try to form allies with others. What that means to us is that on any given day, we will likely face a barrage of deceptive ideas and behaviors that are contrary to God.
What makes things so difficult in our culture today is that society begs for our attention and competes for our allegiance. If we are left to ourselves, these competing voices and behaviors can confuse us much like the terrible sound of an orchestra trying to tune up before a concert.
What causes all the trouble in our life is that in a world of competing world views and temptations, we might wonder who is ultimately right? Whose direction do I follow? Relating back to the tuning up of an orchestra in the symphony of our life, we might even convince ourselves that the off-key sound of the world is the proper note that we need to tune to, or the ultimate rhythm that we're supposed to march to. That is precisely why we need God's Word. We need to conform our lives to an ultimate standard, and that standard is the Bible.
2 Timothy 3:14-15 – “But as for you, continue in what you have learned and firmly believed. You know those who taught you, 15 and you know that from infancy you have known the sacred Scriptures, which are able to give you wisdom for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.”
There are so many deceptive ideas in our culture today that we can fall victim. Our world today says:
- There is really no objective truth. Our world says that all religions are equally valid paths to heaven. We are told that we just have to be a good person. We are to just live our own personal truth. Do whatever makes you happy.
Scripture is our trustworthy guide for life. To a culture that preaches these false values, God's Word points us to the one key truth.-- the Gospel of Jesus Christ. It is God's Word that also tells us that when we turn from our sins and trust Jesus' work on our behalf, God transfers us from the world's stage to His very own stage. He makes us instruments of His praise. He tunes us to His standards of a Godly life.
Paul gives us two ways that God's Word gives us wisdom to guard against all of this deception. First, God's Word shows us how to be saved. There were many false teachers in Paul's day that were teaching contrary to the gospel of Jesus Christ. The same is true today.
Second, God's Word shows us how to be sanctified. Let me tell you a little bit about this word "sanctified". We usually use the word "saved" to describe what happens when we first trust Christ to become Christians. We were saved from our sins at that moment. But the word “sanctified" tells us what God does for us after we become a Christian. Once we become a Christian, God progressively makes us look more and more like Jesus. Just as we need God's Word for salvation, we need it to be sanctified and to grow up in that salvation.
2 Timothy 3:16a – “All Scripture is inspired by God…”
Why do we even need the Bible? Let me tell you why I read my Bible. First of all, because it is God's Word. It is authoritative because it is from God. God's Word makes us wise in everything we need to know to be saved and to live a life as God intended. But how does it do that? What makes the Bible unique from other books?
It's not because it's old. Some books are even older than the Bible.
It's not because it's brilliantly written. Other books are considered brilliant as well.
And it's not because it's a best seller, although it certainly is.
What makes the Bible uniquely powerful to make us wise in this world is that it comes straight from God Himself.
Paul wrote that all Scripture is inspired by God. In the original Greek, that literally means "it is breathed out by God." That's what gives the Bible authority over our lives. The Scripture comes from God Himself.
Even though God used real men in real-time to write down its words, God is the one who makes the Bible authoritative. Yes, God used the intellect and the literary style of each biblical writer, but God superintended the process to ensure that His intent was the final product. So back to our orchestra theme, if God is the ultimate maestro who orders and conducts the universe, then Scripture is the song He wants us to know and live.
2 Timothy 3:16b-17 – “…and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness, 17 so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”
Why do we need the Bible? As we regularly take in God's Word, it transforms us from the inside out. More specifically, it matures our faith that equips us to live holy lives in a world that is saturated in sin.
At East Central high school, I played the trumpet in our marching band. Birdie was in that same band. In my junior and senior year, we were sweepstakes band. That means that we ranked number one in inspection, number 1 in marching, number one in concert, and number one in sight reading. And I can tell you that it took a lot of practice to get to that level. But as much as we practiced, I can tell you that practice doesn't make perfect.
We spent countless hours rehearsing our musical parts and marching technique. On any given day, we may have mistakenly believed that we were practicing for perfection. But practice couldn't make perfect. It could only permanently etch in our minds and muscles the type of performance that we wanted to perform. Why do I even bring this up?
In the symphony of life, God wants us to know and live His Word, to follow His lead while the world marches to the beat of a different drummer. To do this effectively, we must invest the time to learn.
Just like my high school band, we must practice. We must learn God's Word and regularly take it in. This discipline practice trains us for righteous living. Again, this doesn't make us perfect.
On God's stage of life, we will sometimes play a wrong note and miss a cue. But practice does make permanent. The more we take in Scripture and allow it to teach us, rebuke us, and correct us, the more God will etch his melody on our hearts, training us in righteousness and moving us even closer to Christ-likeness. As we spend time in His Word, He matures us and equips us for every good work.
How does this affect our lives? God's Word is profitable for teaching. From Scripture, we learn how to think rightly about God, ourselves, and others.
God's Word is profitable for rebuking. Just like seeing blemishes in a mirror, Scripture shows the simple ways we miss God's mark. It exposes our sins.
God's Word is profitable for correcting. Scripture doesn't just show us where we're wrong. It also redirects us back to what is true and right.
God's Word is profitable for training. The regular practice of teaching, rebuking, and correcting ultimately trains us to walk in the righteousness of Christ. And that, my friends, is why we need the Bible. So that we might be complete, equipped for every good work.
