Tonight is an important point in the year for us as the college students return to the area. Many of you who feel called specifically to minister college students have been laboring all summer to the end which this night brings. Many others who provide a “home away from home” for the students have anxiously awaited the return of the one, two, or three students who you have “adopted” while they are here. It is an exciting time for us tonight.
And, because it is somewhat of a break from the normal service (for not only are the college students back, but we will have a time of fellowship and eating bagels after the service), I am going to break from the normal pattern that I have set out this summer in what I teach on Wednesday nights.
Normally, I would teach from a New Testament passage that directly corresponds to the Old Testament passage from which I had preached on Sunday. However, as I have thought about the college students coming, reflected on my roller coaster of thoughts in that time, and spoken to a friend who was less impressed with Scripture than he once was; I have felt burdened to teach something else tonight. Therefore I want us to look at 2 Timothy 3 tonight and I want to simply make one point (which I will support with a few details).
The one exhortation that I want to give tonight is much like the one Paul gave to Timothy in 2 Timothy 3:14-15. Paul wrote, “You, however, continue in the things you have learned and become convinced of, knowing from whom you have learned them; and that from childhood you have known the sacred writings which are able to give you the wisdom that leads to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.” My exhortation is simply a paraphrase of this. It is simply that you would hold on to the Word of God and, consequently, historic Christianity in a day when the culture will urge you to let go of it.
For I fear that in a day when we will feel the pressure to tolerate every idea, our hold to the authority of the Bible and the uniqueness of Christ will become less and less tolerated. Nevertheless, we must hold on to the Scripture and the truth it conveys.
Therefore, that is my one exhortation and here are three reasons why it is so crucial.
Man is continually trying to diagnose what the world’s problem is. The problem has been diagnosed as anything from a victim of one’s environment to a lack of needed technological advancement to the need for more economic stability. And with wrong diagnoses comes wrong solutions – such as everyone needing therapy or higher paying jobs. But we all know that these diagnoses are all wrong. And the reason why they are wrong is because you cannot begin with the perceived needs of man and find your way back to the truth. Rather, you must start with the truth and allow man to be diagnosed in light of this.
Therefore, we start with the Scripture and let it dictate to us why man is the way he is, for the Scripture is the wisdom of God “that leads to salvation through faith in Christ Jesus” (2 Timothy 3:15). We must hear what Scripture says of God, man, and the effects of sin and work from there. And what the Scripture tells us is that God created the world and is therefore judge, that man is created in God’s image and is therefore responsible for his actions, that the Fall plunged the entire human race into sin, depravity, and guilt before his Judge, and that man is then in need of a Savior who is Jesus Christ alone.
The Fall and sin are the diagnoses for man’s problem and the only solution is the gospel. We find this in the Scripture. And it is therefore perfect, providing all the answers.
A perfect God cannot be created by man. Men have created all kinds of gods in their religions, but he will never be perfect and therefore cannot provide a perfect means of salvation. Every other god is unjust in the end; if He is, then he cannot save. For every god created by man ultimately looks over man’s sin and is therefore not holy as our God is holy.
The God of the Bible is ultimately superior here. He is put forth as a Trinitarian God (one existing in three persons) and perfectly holy. Therefore he cannot overlook sin but must judge it. But how does he then forgive? He satisfies his own requirements by judging man’s sin in his own Son – his exact likeness – on the cross. Only a Trinitarian God could judge an innocent one and not be unjust; He can do this because the one receiving the judgment is himself God, God the Son. Thus, God does not overlook sin; rather, He judges it, providing a perfectly just means of forgiveness. Therefore, the God of the Bible is indeed the God and the truth of the Scripture is indeed the truth.
“But why is it so true in our day? Isn’t it because we looked around and devised a system that might be able to answer every situation?” someone might ask. But, no, rather it is right because it came from God, inspired by him (2 Timothy 3:16). And the truth that we hold to belongs to one who lives forever. Therefore, in the words of G.K. Chesterton, I hope we might all exclaim at the end of our days, “I have kept my truths: but I have discovered not that they were not truths, but simply that they were not mine.”1
This is definitely true in the most elementary sense, for only in the Scripture will we find what the greatest command is, as Matthew records Jesus saying, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the great and foremost commandment” (Matthew 22:37-38). But there is another sense in which I believe the Scripture allows you to fulfill this command. And I think it is wrapped up in verse 15 in our text tonight. Paul tells Timothy to hold on to the “sacred writings … that [lead] to salvation through faith which is in Christ Jesus.”
For Timothy, this is the Old Testament, for the New Testament had yet to be written. Yet Paul can already say that they lead to salvation by faith in Jesus Christ. Therefore, we all know that the New Testament is about the gospel of Jesus Christ, but we need to see that the Old is written of that as well; it is constantly foreshadowing and leading up to that. This is what we’ve been studying for the past few months now and is what has been so crucial in my walk with the Lord in that time.
Let me then show you how this point by Paul that the whole of Scripture points to salvation in Christ allows us to fulfill the greatest commandment. I will give the argument in a series of steps numbered I – VI.
I. The greatest commandment is to love God.
It is not simply to have intellectual knowledge of him but to love him, to know him and delight in him more than all else. This is in fact the goal of Paul’s instruction to Timothy according to 1 Timothy 1:5.
II. Our hearts are drawn to love God when we are able to clearly see who he is.
Our hearts crave the majesty of God and they are unsettled until we catch a glimpse of who he is and behold his glory. But once we do, we cannot help but have our hearts burst forth in love, adoration, and worship of God – which is the greatest commandment.
III. God displays who he is to us in Jesus Christ.
In John 1:18, John writes, “No man has seen God at any time; the only begotten God who is in the bosom of the Father, He has explained him.” Also Jesus says to Philip, “He who has seen Me has seen the Father” (John 14:9).
IV. God’s glory in Jesus Christ is most clearly displayed on the cross.
Jesus says in John 13:31-32, as he was about to go to the cross, “Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in Him; if God is glorified in Him, God will also glorify Him in Himself, and will glorify Him immediately.”
V. The Old Testament is foreshadowing and telling of the One who will come – Jesus Christ, and how he will redeem the world – through the cross. And the New Testament testifies to this reality.
Here is where Paul’s point to Timothy in 2 Timothy 3:15 is so crucial.
VI. Therefore it is in the Scripture that we behold Christ in his glory and are therefore drawn to love, worship, and adore God (i.e. fulfill the greatest commandment).
Therefore, we might ask how Psalmist can say over and over again that he delights in and loves the Law in Psalm 119? The answer is that he sees in the pages of the Old Testament the plan of redemption for his people through the Lord his God.
This is how we are to see the Old Testament (2 Corinthians 3:12-18).
Now this might sound a bit awkward, for many people are studying to be lawyers, nurses, teachers, etc. However, as Christians, we have a higher calling no matter where we are or what we do. Therefore, wherever and to whatever God has called you, you are utmost to aid others in increasing their knowledge of and delight in God. It may not be through teaching the Bible in the midst of your office, but it will be by magnifying the Lord by your attitude, language, lifestyle, etc. in the midst of doing your job. Therefore, your highest calling in God placing you where he is, is that you might know him and delight in him and that you might increase others knowledge of and delight in Him.
But how do we prepare for a calling of that magnitude? Paul answers that question for us in 2 Timothy 3:16-17. He writes, “All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness; that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.”
And therefore, allowing yourself to meditate and delight in the Scripture is your channel to preparing yourself for your calling, for it leads you to fulfill the greatest commandment.
Again, G.K. Chesterton comes to mind as he wrote of his childhood, “I did, like all other solemn little boys, try to be in advance of the age. Like them I tried to be some ten minutes in advance of the truth. And I found I was eighteen hundred years behind it.”2 Let’s learn from his testimony. In a day when everyone wants to do and believe something new and different, hold on tightly to the Scripture, for it is indeed the Word of God. Amen.