Some of you may be wondering why I am up here this morning. To answer that question I would like to tell you briefly about my faith journey. I was raised in a Christian home and have attended various churches all my life. When I was 12, I made a public confession of my faith and was baptized in a Baptist church. Three years later a young man came walking down our driveway on a summer day. We didn’t often see people walking down from the street because our driveway is about 500 feet long. The young man turned out to be an acquaintance of mine from school named David. I knew him because we both swam on the High School swim team. I was very surprised to see him and after saying hello asked why he had come. It turns out he was a Jehovah Witness and was going around telling people about what his church believed. As I said I had been baptized and I was convinced that following the God of the Bible and trusting in Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of my sins was the correct path to eternal life. But his visit caused me to start thinking about the faith I professed to have. David took time out of his summer to tell people about what he believed, while I was doing nothing to tell others about Jesus my Savior. Because of his visit I started to examine the Bible much more carefully. I actually began reading it every day and figuring out what it said. I found that I really enjoyed reading it. It provided answers to some of the questions that I had as a teenager. Because of David’s visit I began developing a personal relationship with my Heavenly Father. A year or so later I became aware that God was calling me into full time Christian work. I can’t really tell you how I knew, but my understanding of the call was so real I had no doubt that it was from God.

Immediately after high school I went on to college with the goal of becoming a pastor. During my second year of Bible College I began to doubt, not my faith, but my willingness to be a preacher. So I transferred to a different school and majored in Geology. For several years I worked in the oil industry and wound up in Denver. That call of God on my life never went away. Every so often He would remind me that He wanted me to be involved in His service. Those gentle reminders came regularly: 1985, 1995 and then again in 2003. I honestly hoped the prodding would go away, but it didn’t. I finally realized that it would not be wise to ignore God about that issue any longer. I prayed about how to proceed and then with a good bit of apprehension approached Kathryn about the possibility of my changing careers. To my amazement she agreed and now I am enrolled in the Masters of Divinity program at Denver Seminary. It is very appropriate for me to be here today to preach about the Word of God, because I have felt that God’s call on my life is for me to preach His Word. I have been very reluctant, just like the main character of our scripture lesson for today: Timothy.

Today’s scripture passage is 2 Timothy 3:14-4:5, it will be on the screen in the TNIV or you can follow along on page 1855 of the pew Bible which is the NIV. The only difference you will find is the inclusive language in the TNIV.

Please follow along as I read.

This is the Word of the Lord. (Thanks be to God)

This passage of scripture was written by the apostle Paul. It is part of a personal letter written to Timothy. Paul was most likely in prison in Rome awaiting execution when he wrote this letter. Earlier Paul had left Timothy in Ephesus to be its leader and primary teacher. Timothy was one of Paul’s closest associates. He traveled with Paul extensively while Paul started and maintained many first century churches. We know from reading through the book of Acts and the other letters Paul wrote that Timothy had a Greek father and a Jewish Christian mother. He was a second or third generation believer in Jesus the Christ. His grandmother and mother were believers before him. Paul considered himself Timothy’s spiritual father and was therefore instrumental in Timothy’s training as a believer. He, Timothy, helped Paul establish several churches and at times remained on at the church even after Paul left to establish leadership. Christians from Lystra and Iconium spoken very highly of Timothy: he had a good reputation. Paul spoke very highly of him. It sounds like Timothy was a young man who had it all together.

But there is another side to the story! For some reason Timothy was not meeting up to Paul’s standards of service. In 2 Timothy 1:6 Paul encourages him to fan into flame the gift that is in him. Apparently, Timothy was not practicing or exercising the gift or gifts he was given. In verse 7 Paul tells him that as a Christian leader he should not be timid. Timothy, in Paul’s eyes lacked courage. In verse 8 Paul reminds Timothy not to be ashamed to share the Gospel. In chapter 2 Paul reminds Timothy to be strong and not to become entangled in worldly affairs. Later, in 2:22 he is told not to give in to youthful lusts. On the one hand Timothy sounds like he was one great leader, but on the other he had his faults. Timothy was human! He wasn’t living up to the expectations of Paul and perhaps of God.

I wonder why? Why do you suppose Timothy wasn’t living up to Paul’s expectations and doing what God wanted him to do? He had great qualities! Others saw him as a leader, but for some reason or reasons he wasn’t performing. Was it his age? He may have felt like the older believers would not respect him or support his leadership. Was his personality such that he was not entirely comfortable in a leadership role? Perhaps, he was somewhat of an introvert. Or was he like Moses and he felt very uncomfortable with his speaking abilities? Or did he think he was not prepared well enough to be a leader? Maybe, like me, he had just started working on his M. Div. degree and was a long way from being finished! We don’t know what was keeping Timothy from success, but we know he was not fulfilling the role God through Paul had given him.

Have you ever felt this way? Has God asked you to do something that you felt ill prepared to do? I can readily identify with Timothy. God said to me long ago, "Steve, I want you to preach." I struggled with that for a lot of reasons. I don’t think that my talents really lend to public speaking. I am an introvert. I am not very comfortable speaking to a large group of people. I am far from perfect. I sometimes lack the courage to do things that are difficult for me. Part of me would rather prepare and climb Mt. Everest than be here speaking to you.

So what does Paul do to instill confidence in his young protégé? From the text we can walk right through what Paul does. In chapter 3:10-12 Paul reminded Timothy of how he lived his own life. Paul faithfully served God even through all the trials and persecutions he endured. In 3:13 Paul points out the importance of the task as he writes about the proliferation of false teachers who are spreading lies and myths. In 3:14-15 Paul asks Timothy to reflect back on what he knows and from whom he gained his knowledge. Timothy was trained as any Jewish boy would have been. He knew and trusted the Old Testament scriptures. He was instructed in the ways of Jesus Christ by his mother, grandmother and apostle Paul. He had faithful teachers and a trustworthy message. In 3:16-17 Paul reminds Timothy of the origin and purpose of scripture. "All Scripture is God-breathed and useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness." The Holy Scriptures that Timothy claimed to believe had their origin in the Creator of the universe: God Himself. The last thing Paul tells Timothy to do is to get busy doing the work that God gave him to do. He says in chapter 4 verse 2: "Preach the Word." And later in 4:5 "do the work of an evangelist." Paul knew that taking action would help Timothy overcome his fear.

So what? What does that have to do with you and me in twenty-first century America? Does it apply? Is it relevant? Is Paul saying we should go around preaching to people? If I said yes would you be surprised? Well I believe Paul is saying that we should all be preaching, but not in the literal sense! The truth is we are preaching everyday! Our lives and our words preach even when we aren’t aware of it. We all have heard the saying "what you do speaks louder than what you say." Our lives should preach or demonstrate to others every day who God is and what He has done in our lives.

The purpose of the Word of God is to transform us, you and me, into God’s likeness so that everyone on earth will see God in us and choose to love and follow Him!

How does the Bible do that? Paul explained how this happens in this text we are studying today.

Paul’s primary emphasis in this passage is this: God’s people must unequivocally accept that the Bible is the authoritative, inspired Word of God. That seems to be the big problem in our society and in many churches today. America was at one time considered to be a Christian nation. It was founded on Christian principles over 200 years ago. But ever since the Enlightenment and the rise of naturalistic evolution the influence of God and the church has diminished. Time doesn’t allow us to go into this in great detail today, but I need to mention what has happened so that we can how it affected our society. Before the Enlightenment most people assumed that God existed as the Creator of everything. His existence was an accepted fact. With the rise of naturalism and eventually Darwin’s Theory of Evolution, many people, especially those in the scientific community, thought that God was no longer necessary. The universe and all it contains was thought to always exist and creatures came into being through the evolutionary process. Ever since then non-believers have sought to eliminate God and discredit His Word: the Bible.

You and I have been greatly influenced by this thinking. We were taught in school to learn by the scientific method and that only what can be experienced with our senses is real. We were taught to test the validity of everything before accepting it as true. Because of this the Bible has come under heavy scrutiny. Miracles were seen as improbable and its history questioned. It has become so maligned that many people consider it irrelevant or of little use. Even many churches today want to view the Bible as a book that only "contains the Word of God" rather that a book that is the "Word of God."

Paul told Timothy that the Holy Scriptures are the inspired Word of God. By that he meant that the Holy Spirit inspired the writers of the Bible to write what God wanted them to write, but in their own literary style. We can’t prove or disprove that the Bible was inspired by God using the scientific method. We weren’t there. But we can examine other evidence that demonstrates the Bible is indeed the inspired Word of God. A few weeks ago when we were studying the DaVinci Code, Pastor Ron presented some compelling evidence. He showed us a chart on the screen that compared the number of manuscripts known to exist for three great literary works. Plato’s works are known through 30 manuscripts. Homer’s Iliad has been preserved with 650 manuscripts. The New Testament is represented by 24,000 manuscripts. If the Bible is just another good literary work why did the people of the first few centuries make so many copies of it? To them it must have been something very important. What’s even more amazing is that when those manuscripts are compared letter to letter and word for word they are 99.5% accurate! The Bible was preserved in a very meticulous and miraculous way. Those who copied it considered it the Word of God, not simple a good book.

Another piece of evidence that the Bible is the Word of God comes from an unlikely source. Several atheists, both past and present, have sought to discredit the Bible by trying to prove it contains inaccurate historical facts. They reason that if they prove some of the statements in the Bible are false then they can discredit the whole book. One such person was Sir William Ramsey who in the mid 1800’s sought to prove that the history recorded in the book of Acts was inaccurate. He went to Greece and Asia Minor to do some archeological digs convinced that he could dig up evidence against the Bible record. But everything he found proved that the Biblical record is accurate! He was so convinced that he became a Christian and a great Biblical scholar.

The Bible is accurate! In fact Dr. J.O. Kinnaman, an early to mid 1900s archeologist, wrote, "Of the hundreds of thousands of artifacts found by archeologists, not one has ever been discovered that contradicts or denies one word, phrase, clause, or sentence of the Bible, but always confirms and verifies the facts of the Biblical record." Try as the will those who seek to prove that the Bible is full of false statements will not succeed. It is inspired by God. God is truth. His Word is Truth.

I could go on and on about how important it is for the church to accept the Bible as the authoritative Word of God, but we must move on. The second main point of this passage is found in 3:16 and again in 4:2. Paul wrote that the Holy Scriptures are to be used to teach, rebuke, correct and train God’s people for service. As I said earlier, the purpose of God’s Word is to transform you and me into the image of God. Because we are human, as Ron reminded us of that a few weeks ago, we need to allow our lives to be changed through the study and application of what we learn from the Bible.

When I first started reading the Bible I was hungry to find out who God is and how He wanted me to live. I learned a lot in a short amount of time. I learned through reading the Bible. As I read, I came to realize that some of my attitudes and behaviors were not in line with how God wanted me to live. God was using the Bible and the Holy Spirit to rebuke and correct my behavior. Paul wrote to Timothy that as a church leader or preacher he was responsible to use the Word to rebuke and correct those who were not living godly lives. Being rebuked and corrected is not the most pleasant thing to experience. It is not pleasant for the rebuker or the rebukee! But rebuke and correction is necessary if we want our lives to be more pleasing to God.

The fourth activity in Paul’s list is training. Training involves practice. That means that we do things over and over till we get it right. The first time we do something, swing a golf club or a tennis racket or kick a soccer ball we don’t it very well. We will not become perfect or proficient until we train ourselves to perform the task. Similarly, we won’t become mature, godly Christians overnight. It takes years of practice. It will take a lifetime.

Our children Billy and Tessa took up swimming this summer. When they first started they couldn’t swim even one length without grabbing the side of the pool. The second or third week they were taught how to do a start. They started off the side of the pool rather than the blocks because it is less painful if you hit the water incorrectly. One evening the team was invited to come out and practice their starts—it was a training session. Billy asked, "Why do I need to practice my starts I already know how to do starts?" When Billy first learned to do a start he would put his hands over his head, bend over at the waist and fall into the water. That is how all first year swimmers do it. You and I know that there is a lot more to great starts than simply fall into the water. Good swimmers can dive in and propel themselves halfway across the pool before they surface. The eight year old falls in and doesn’t start to move down the lane until they surface and start stroking wildly. Billy didn’t understand that in order to have great starts he needed to practice. He needed to train.

It is the same in our Christian walk. We start out as children or as Paul says "babes in Christ" and with the good teaching, rebuking, correction, and training we mature into godly people. The Bible is the one and only God-inspired source of the information that describes who God is, what He is doing in the world and how He wants us to live. By reading and studying it regularly and submitting to what it says we can and will grow more and more like the Lord Jesus Christ.

How have others viewed the Bible?

Let’s take a few moments to reflect on what the Word of God; the Bible means to us today.