WWUTT 702 Equipped for Every Good Work?

All scripture is breathed out by God, and it is applicable. It applies to you in your life, that you may be complete and equipped for every good work when we understand the text.

This is when we understand the text, studying God's Word to reach all the riches of full assurance in Christ. Thank you for subscribing, and if this has ministered to you, please let others know about our program.

Here once again is Pastor Gabe Hughes.

The Context of 2 Timothy 3:16-4:5

Thank you, Becky. We're back to our study in 2 Timothy, and as with yesterday, because I just love the passage that we read yesterday, I'm going to begin in chapter 3, verse 16, and read through chapter 4, verse 5.

The Apostle Paul writes, 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. Every time we open up the Bible, there is something that the Holy Spirit means to communicate to us.

There is an application in this text that applies to you and it applies to me. But in order to glean the deepest and fullest meaning from the text that we have just read, it is necessary for us to understand there is still a context going on here.

There is an author of this text and there is a recipient. There was a specific reason why this text was written to the person it was written to. Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, is a carrier of the word of Christ, and he is coming up on his last days on earth, as he is imprisoned in Rome for the second time he knows that he is about to be martyred.

Timothy is Paul's most trusted servant. He refers to Timothy as a son in the faith. It seems to be that Paul is the most endeared to Timothy than any other name he mentions from his letters in the New Testament.

And there is a church, it seems, that Paul loves more than any of the other churches that he has planted, and that's the church in Ephesus. So Paul has sent the servant whom he trusts the most to the church he loves the most, that Timothy would continue to teach there.

And as Paul is about to leave earth and go to be with Christ in glory, he is giving Timothy these final exhortations to continue the work that he is commissioned to do with complete patience and teaching as he raises up the people of God in the knowledge of God according to the scriptures.

And so there's a little bit of an overview of our context. So even though Paul is writing to Timothy, and Timothy has a pastoral role, there is still something in this text that applies directly to you.

And I mention that in particular because Paul says in verse 17 that all scripture is breathed out by God is useful for teaching, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

Now why is that significant? Why did I give all of that explanation heading into an understanding that the man of God may be complete? Because man of God is something that Paul has, it's a title that Paul has used to refer to Timothy in both letters, first Timothy and second Timothy.

He calls him a man of God. He is equating Timothy with the prophets of the Old Testament. Whenever Elijah or Elisha or any of the other prophets, Isaiah, whenever they were sent for by the king, the king would say, go and bring the man of God to me.

Moses was also referred to as a man of God. The prophets have that title in the Old Testament. And so as, as Paul is telling Timothy to continue to teach the God breathed scriptures to the church, he is like the men of God of the Old Testament who delivered the word of God to the king.

This is the exhortation that Paul is giving to Timothy that he might continue to do this work even after Paul is gone, reminding Timothy to stick with the scriptures, teach sound doctrine so that the man of God, Timothy himself would be complete and equipped for every good work.

But also Timothy, as he's raising up elders in the church where he pastors, they would also be men of God as they teach the word of God. So Timothy would likewise teach them to know the scriptures that the man of God may be complete equipped for every good work.

That's the direct application of this text, but it still has an application for you and for me. Now the application for me should be obvious. I'm a pastor. I have been called to preach the word of God to the people of God.

Scripture, Sanctification, and the Pastor's Calling

So of course I need to hitch myself to the scriptures, Old Testament and new, so that I may know them well and teach them to God's people for the scriptures are profitable for teaching and reproof and correction and for training in righteousness.

How might the people of God continue to grow in righteousness? Since Jesus said, Matthew chapter six, seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness. So how do I lead the people of God in that endeavor by teaching them the word of God?

I have nothing great to say that would help a person grow in godliness or in sanctification. The only way a person grows in sanctification is according to the word of God. They hear the word of God, they turn from their sin, they do what God says.

So that's, that's how this, this passage here, this instruction would directly apply to me. Of course, since I am a pastor, but how might that apply to you? You have not been called to be a pastor. Maybe you're a woman and you know, based on what we read in first Timothy two, you won't ever be a pastor for it is a role that God has intended for men to fill.

So does this mean verse 17, the man of God may be complete equipped for every good work. Does that mean it doesn't apply to women? It doesn't apply to people who will never become a pastor in their lifetime.

How does this passage apply to you? Well, remember when we went through the list of qualifications for an elder or an overseer in first Timothy three, I mentioned that there's nothing really extraordinary about those character traits.

Anybody can aspire to them. And in fact, should the elder or the overseer for the church, a pastor is supposed to be a model of a mature Christian. Everybody should aspire to that level of maturity. Now one of the qualifications for a teacher for an elder in the church is that he would be able to teach.

You may not have that gift, but you as a Christian should be above reproach, should be moral in character, Christ-like pursuing godliness. If you are married, you must be committed to that one spouse whom you have committed yourself to in marriage before God and before witnesses.

You must be self-controlled, not given over to the passions of your flesh. You must be respectable, held in high regard by others. You must be hospitable, taking what God has blessed you with and using it to bless other people.

You must not be a drunkard. Do not be enslaved to those things which might dull your mind or your senses. You must not be violent, but gentle. You must not be quarrelsome. You must not be a lover of money, for none of the stuff of this world satisfies.

And those who love money will fall into a snare as Paul would go on to talk about in first Timothy chapter six. If you have a household, like you've got a spouse and you've got children, you must manage your own household well.

Even though the husband is the head of his household, there's still instructions for women on how they're supposed to care for their household as well. You can read some of those instructions in Proverbs chapter 31, in Titus chapter two.

And as we read in second Timothy two, you must also flee youthful passions and pursue righteousness, faith, love and peace, along with those who call on the Lord with a pure heart, along with the church.

You must not have anything to do with foolish, ignorant controversies for, you know, they breed quarrels and you must not be quarrelsome, but kind to everyone, patiently enduring evil, correcting opponents with gentleness.

Even though these instructions are given to Timothy and they're given to overseers in the church and pastors must follow them, so must you. They still apply to you as well. So now as we come here to verse 17, we understand that when we read the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

This certainly applies to Timothy and how he teaches in the church. This certainly applies to any pastor today and how they teach and lead their congregations. But it also applies to you that you may be complete in your growth and in your pursuit of holiness and sanctification, and you would know how to be equipped for every good work of God that we all are called to do.

We all have a work to do in Christ Jesus while we are here on this earth. The man of God, the teacher is equipped to be able to lead people in those things. But you as a disciple of Christ Jesus, you also are looking for that completeness in your pursuit of sanctification, which you won't attain, by the way, until you leave this world and you go to be with Christ.

But you pursue those things because as Paul said to the Philippians, I desire to make it my own because Christ has made me his own and you desire to be equipped for every good in Christ that all you do would be to the glory of God.

So that's how these things apply to Timothy, to pastors today, and even to you. You must know the scriptures and commit yourself to the Bible, for it is profitable to equip you for every good work in Christ that you would be complete in your sanctification and your pursuit of holiness.

And if you listen to programs like this one, not that you have to listen to my podcast, but if you're listening to podcasts where people are teaching the word of God like this, that says something about your desire to want to grow in an understanding of who God is and how I can please him, how I can live a life as a worthy son or daughter of God.

I was not worthy to be part of the family of God. I was a sinner. I was awful in sickness and in rebellion against God, in perversity. I was chasing after things that were totally contrary for what God had intended for me to glorify him with my whole heart, soul, mind, and strength.

I was doing the opposite of all of that. And yet God showed his love for me in that while I was a sinner, while I was an enemy of God, he sent his son Christ to die for me. Jesus Christ, the son of God, who by his very nature has every right to be called God and remain seated in the heavens for all time.

Yet he left his throne and came down here to earth and took on the form of a man, the likeness of a servant and became obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. So God is highly exalted him and given him the name that is above every name so that at the name of Jesus, every knee should bow in heaven and on earth and under the earth.

And every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God, the father. What a great price Christ paid for me. What a great sacrifice. We would never be able to even offer anything remotely close to what Christ has offered us by his death on the cross and resurrection from the grave.

If you were to go to the ocean and you threw a drop of water in the ocean, you would have contributed more to the ocean than any good thing you can do would be remotely comparable to what great thing Christ has done for us.

That is how incredibly huge it is that Jesus did this thing to leave his throne in heaven and come and die on the cross for our sins so that by his shed blood, we would become adopted sons and daughters of God.

We were children of wrath. We were following the prince of the power of the air. We were sons and daughters of Satan. And yet God regarded our need so much that he gave his son to die for our sins so that all who believe in him by faith in Jesus Christ, our sins are forgiven and we have right standing with God.

We have adoption into the family of God, no longer children of wrath. We are now children of his love and his affection. And I draw that out. I share that gospel with you once again, so that you would know that as a son or daughter of God, you should want to live as a worthy son or daughter of God because of what Christ has done for us, because his gift was so great.

Our understanding of that should stir in us a desire to want to be worthy sons and daughters. This isn't a matter of trying to earn God's favor by your work. You can't earn God's favor by your work. You can't do it.

You never could do it. You can't do it now. Jesus is loved by the father and he did everything for us as our substitute in his life as well as in his death, so that all who believe in him are clothed in his righteousness.

And by the work of Christ, we are received as worthy sons and daughters of God. But again, because of the great thing that Christ has done, this should motivate us, stir in us a desire to want to be worthy sons and daughters of God.

And how, how do we do that? How can you know what it would take to be a worthy son or daughter of God? It is according to what God's word says. How do we please our father? How do we know what our father wants, what he expects of us?

We find it in the scriptures and all scripture is breathed out by our father. And it is profitable for teaching us, his children teaching us, reproving us, showing us our errors so that we might come to correction and we might be trained in righteousness, grow according to the instruction of our father who is in heaven, that we, the man of God, or as it may apply to you, the son or daughter of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.

You could consider it this way. A father desires that his son would grow from a boy into a man as he comes into adulthood. So likewise, as we are growing in sanctification and our understanding of what it means to be like Christ or be in pursuit of our father who is in heaven, we would be growing up into men and women of God so that the man of God, the woman of God may be complete.

We've been, we are sufficiently equipped for everything we need and we have it all in the word of God, old Testament or new. And now we know how to please God with every good work that we do, giving glory to our God and father who is in heaven through all that we do, because we know he has given us everything in his son, Jesus Christ, that our sins would be forgiven and we would be made fellow heirs with him in his kingdom.

What an unworthy, what a gift we are unworthy of. And yet God loved us so much that this is what he has given to us. We were traitors to the kingdom of God, and yet he has made us fellow heirs of the kingdom of God with Christ.

Jesus says in the book of Revelation that if you continue in these things, obeying the commands of God that we have given in the scriptures, he would give to us to sit with him on his throne. It's just amazing.

The more that you consider this, we were enemies of the kingdom, we deserve to be destroyed by the king of the kingdom. And yet we've become fellow heirs of the kingdom to even sit with Christ on his throne.

The scriptures are what teaches, they're what teach us of our errors and our need for a savior and who that savior is, Jesus Christ, and then what that savior expects of us as we grow in Christ. In Psalm 119, we read, how can a young man or we can rightly apply young woman keep his or her way pure by guarding it according to your word with my whole heart?

I seek you. Let me not wander from your commandments. I have stored up your word in my heart that I might not sin against you. Blessed are you, O Lord, teach me your statutes with my lips. I declare all the rules of your mouth in the way of your testimonies.

I delight as much as in all riches. I will meditate on your precepts and fix my eyes on your ways. I will delight in your statutes. I will not forget your word, for it is by this word that you would be complete and equipped for every good work as worthy sons and daughters of God in Christ Jesus.

Prayer and Closing Exhortation

Let us pray. Lord God, I pray that you would convict us of our sin, that we would turn from those things that you have told us in your word to no longer chase after. We are not about the passions of our flesh anymore, but we have been renewed by the transformation of our heart, having the Holy Spirit of God poured into our lives, that we would hear the word of God and understand it and obey it.

God, I ask that you would deal bountifully with your servants, that we would live and keep your word. Open our eyes that we may behold the wondrous things of the Bible. We are sojourners here on the earth.

Do not hide your commandments from us, but continue to reveal your will as we find it in the scriptures, that we may follow it and continue to live as Christ and grow and become more and more like him as we pursue holiness.

My soul is consumed with longing for your rules at all times. Forgive me of my sins and take away from me scorn and contempt, for I have kept your testimonies. They are my delight. Your word is my counselor.

Guide us according to your word. In Jesus name. Amen.

Thank you for listening to When We Understand the Text with Pastor Gabe Hughes. If you'd like to support this ministry, visit our website www .wutt .com and click on the Give tab in the top right corner of the page.

Join us again tomorrow as we continue our Bible study When We Understand the Text.