Well, good evening to everyone.
It's good to see you. If you would open your Bibles
with me to the book of 2 Timothy, 2 Timothy chapter three. As you're turning, let me tell
you what a joy it is to be with you again, how much I've looked
forward to being able to worship our God together with you. It's
so good to see you. I've entitled the message this
evening, The Importance of God's Word. Now just like at home,
I notice y'all here make much of the Word of God. I've been
here less than an hour, and I've heard three passages of God's
Word read aloud, just like we do at home. You make much of
God's Word. Most usually when we preach, we preach verse by
verse through the Word of God. Much like your pastor at home,
I take a book, Preach verse by verse all the way through it
so that we'll be taught all the counsel of God. So that I won't
dodge certain subjects or just preach the word. That's what
Paul told Timothy. We go verse by verse through
God's word, teaching his word. And I'll tell you why we make
much of God's word. Because it's God's word. It's
God's word. This book, has absolutely everything
that God has to say to men, all contained in one book. It's a
big book, but relatively speaking, it's small, isn't it? It's not
like a set of encyclopedias, but it has absolutely everything
you need to know to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ. It has
everything that you need to know pertaining to eternal life and
salvation. And we go verse by verse through
God's Word because we don't have anything else to say other than
what God's Word says. We don't have anything to say
at all, really, but God's Word does. And that's what we need
to hear. And I want us to look at why
is it that we make so much of God's Word? This is so important.
In the last verses of 2 Timothy 3, the apostle gives us seven
reasons why the Word of God is so important. And number one
is this, the Word of God is so important because of who teaches
us the Word, because of who gives us an understanding, that the
understanding to give us an understanding of Christ from God's Word. Look
beginning at verse 13. But evil men and seducers shall
wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived. But continue
thou, Timothy, you continue in the things which thou hast learned
and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them.
Now God's given us many men to preach his word, to teach the
word, and we're thankful for those men, aren't we? How many
of them have you heard? How many of God's faithful servants
have you heard preach his word? Aren't you thankful for them?
Timothy learned the gospel at the knee of his mother and his
grandmother. That's special, isn't it? That's
special. Timothy learned the gospel. He had that gospel. His
mother and grandmother taught him, confirmed him. He heard
the apostle Paul preach. I'd like to hear Paul preach,
wouldn't you? That's special. Timothy had some pretty good
teachers, and we have too. But you know what? Even though
all those faithful, gifted men who teach and preach God's word,
even after hearing them all, only God, the Holy Spirit, can
teach the word to our hearts. Only God, the Holy Spirit, can
teach the word to our hearts so that we believe, so that we
believe Christ. Now, God's our teacher. The Lord
uses means, but let's never be mistaken about this. God's our
teacher, isn't he? And when God teaches the heart, here's how
you can tell if God has taught your heart. If God's taught your
heart, you believe. You believe the word, and you
believe Christ. You believe the written word,
and you believe Christ, the incarnate word. And the only way we'll
continue, Paul tells Timothy, you continue, Timothy, in this,
the only way we're gonna continue in this word, in this gospel,
is if God has taught our heart. You know, if a man is the one
who teaches us, and he impresses us, and we just like him, he's
got a dynamic personality, he's a great speaker, he's a great
preacher. If a man is the one who impresses us and teaches
us, our so-called faith is only gonna last till he dies. Or maybe
if somebody else comes along and impresses us and turns our
head another way. But if God teaches the heart,
We'll continue. We'll continue in the word. We'll
continue believing Christ, no matter who we hear preach it.
When somebody preaches Christ, we'll amen that. It's not the
preacher, it's the message. It's the Savior that we're looking
for. That's how you can tell if God's taught your heart. And
Paul tells Timothy, you be assured. Be assured of what you've learned.
You know, the only way we can have assurance of the truth of
the message of the Bible is if God gives us faith in Christ.
It can only be by faith. You can't be assured by physically
seeing these things. Parts of this book are 6,000
years old. You can't go back and see those
things by faith, can you? You can't go back and see and
find Noah's Ark to prove to you that Noah built an ark and God
saved Noah and his feet. I remember I was a little fella,
some man kept making these expeditions up some mountain somewhere, utterly
determined he had found Noah's ark and he was gonna show the
world Noah's ark and prove to the world that the Bible was
true, that Noah's ark really existed. And that fascinated
me. And my dad told me, he's never
going to find it, never. He said, God won't allow it.
He said, we don't need to see that ark physically to know that
it happened. God's word said it, and that's
all we need to know. That's all we need to know. I like what
Brother Fortner says, that ark doesn't exist anymore anyway.
Noah got off that ark, and what did he do? He chopped that ark
up for firewood to make him a house. It doesn't exist anyway. But
it doesn't matter. We don't need to see it. The
newest parts of this book are 2,000 years old. How can you
go back and be an eyewitness of those things? You can't. All
of this book tells us of eternal things. Tells us of God the Father,
God himself, he's eternal. Tells us about God's covenant
of grace, eternal. Tells us about God's purpose
of redemption in Christ, it's eternal. It's the lamb slain
from the foundation of the world. Well, how can you be assured
of these eternal things when you can't see any physical evidence?
When you can't be an eyewitness to these things yourself? How
can you be assured of them? One way. How can you even be
sure that Christ died on a cross? How can you be sure of that?
God-given faith. And if God will give us faith,
we'll be convinced of the truth, of the message of this word.
And the message of the whole book is Christ. The message of the whole book.
I ask you, aren't you convinced of your fallen Adam? Aren't you
convinced of it? Aren't you convinced that you
came into this world dead in sin? You learned that from this
book. Aren't you convinced of your
desperate need of a Savior? How desperately we need Christ.
How desperately we need Him to come save us. I've heard twice
tonight men pray for our children. How desperately. They're gonna
perish unless God has mercy on them. Unless God comes to them
and saves them. Aren't you just convinced you have no righteousness
of your own? You can't obey God's law. You
can't please God. The only way you can ever be
made righteous is in Christ. Are you convinced of that? Are
you convinced that everyone for whom Christ died is justified? Are you convinced? He didn't
die for every son of Adam. He died for his people and those
people are justified. Are you convinced of that? Are
you convinced that the Lord Jesus Christ is able to save to the
uttermost everybody that comes to God by Him? That everybody
comes to God seeking mercy, begging mercy for Christ's sake, are
you convinced He's able to save them to the uttermost, fully
and completely? Are you convinced, I mean convinced,
that the Lord will keep His people, that none of them will perish?
Because He's going to keep them by His power, the power of His
grace and His love. Are you convinced of those things? You're convinced of them if God's
taught you His word. And maybe some man taught you, you're not
convinced. But if God's taught you His word, you're convinced.
How will a person continue in these things? How do we know
that somebody will not be carried away with every wind of doctrine,
the cunning craftiness of a false prophet? How do you know they
won't be carried away with that? Because they're taught the word, they're
grounded in the word. If God's taught you the word,
you know it, you believe it, and you won't believe a lie.
Oh, this word is so important because of who teaches it, who
makes it, who applies it to our hearts. Number two, this word
is so important, I already touched on this, because this word teaches
Christ. Verse 15, Paul tells Timothy
that from a child thou hast known the holy scriptures which are
able to make thee wise unto salvation through faith which is in Christ
Jesus. Now like I said, this congregation,
you've heard many, many faithful, gifted men preach the word. Some
of you from a child. Some of you from a child. A man
told me the other day how thankful he is for your pastor. He says,
he so faithfully taught me Christ from the time I was a child.
Isn't that a blessing? Isn't that a blessing? Some of you been taught the scriptures
from the time you were little by your parents. You had Sunday
school teachers. You turned three years old. Your
parents bring you to a Sunday school class. And there's a lady
who is gifted beyond what I can think of to be able to teach
a three-year-old, teach a three-year-old, give them memory verses. That
little three-year-old, this always amazes me, that little three-year-old
mouth moving. And out comes the Word of God. Isn't that something? Somebody's teaching you that.
Isn't that a blessing? Now I ask you, some of you maybe
haven't been here from a child. You've been here a long time.
I see a lot of faces I've seen here many, many times. I got
a question for you. You've been sitting here under
a faithful pastor. God's gifted him. What have you learned? Huh? I want you to answer that question
in your heart. What have you learned? Have you learned a bunch
of true facts? Have you learned to be proud
of your knowledge? Have you learned to be proud
of your right doctrine? You know something's true. Most people
don't. Have you learned to be proud of that? Have you learned
to be proud because you think, yeah, I know there's a lot of
churches around, but now I got the best pastor. I have the best
teacher. I'm better off than them folks. Have you learned
that? Have you learned to think that your knowledge of scriptural
facts and scriptural doctrine, have you learned that that saves
you? Oh, I hope not. I hope not. What have you learned? Look over with me at John chapter
five. If God the Holy Spirit's been your teacher, I can tell
you what you've learned. You've learned Christ. That's what you've
learned. John chapter five. This is our Lord speaking to
the Pharisees. He tells them John 5, 39, Search
the scriptures. He's telling you, you do search
the scriptures. For in them, you think you have eternal life
and they are they which testify of me. These men thought that
the physical act of searching the scriptures and memorizing
passages of scripture and the scribes copying them down, you
know, from, so they have multiple copies. They thought that being
physically in this word, they thought that saved them. And
the Lord tells him, you're wrong, you're wrong. Yeah, you memorize
passages of it. Yes, you see what that, you can
read what that's saying, but you've missed the message of
the book. You've missed the message of
the scriptures. The scriptures testify of Christ, of Christ. The scriptures, every scripture,
every verse of scripture tells us, look to Christ, trust Christ.
Here he is in his glory, not trusting. The scriptures don't
testify to us of laws that we've got to keep, of rules and regulations
and morality that makes us better than other men and makes us more
acceptable in God's sight. The scriptures testify of Christ. Now, we must know Christ. If we would be saved, we must
know him. Knowing him is life eternal.
That's what our Lord said. Well, this book is the only way
you can know him. It's the only way, it's the only
place that God reveals His Son to the hearts of His people.
It's the only revelation of the Savior that there is. Revealing
Christ is the whole purpose of the book. And I can tell you
if you've learned Christ or not, I can tell you. You can tell,
you can know whether or not that you've learned Christ or whether
you just learned some doctrine. Here's how you can tell, verse
40. and you will not come unto me that you might have life. Now, if you've learned Christ,
I'll tell you what you'll do. You'll come to Christ. You'll come to
Him begging for mercy. You'll come to Him for salvation.
You'll come to Him begging Him to be all of your salvation.
If you've learned Christ, you're gonna trust Him. You'll believe
Him and you'll trust Him. You'll trust your entire soul
to Him. And if you haven't learned Christ,
like these men to whom our Lord is speaking, you won't come.
You won't come to Christ because you don't see a need to come
to him. You're trusting your knowledge. You're trusting your
morality. You're trusting your law-keeping. You don't need Christ.
You're trusting all your religion. If that's what you've learned,
you won't come to Christ. But if you've learned the message
of the book, it's the Lord Jesus Christ, you'll come to him. You
see, salvation is not knowing the laws. Salvation is not knowing
the ceremonies. Salvation is not having the right
form of religion. Salvation is knowing Christ,
is knowing Christ. Salvation is having Christ formed
in the heart. Salvation is being born again
by the will of God. If we would be saved, we must
know Christ. We must believe him. And we must be born again.
Isn't that what our Lord told Nicodemus? You must be born again. Well, I'll tell you what, that
can only happen by the preaching of the word. And I'll make good
on that if you look with me at James chapter one. God's people
are only going to be born again by the preaching of the word.
James chapter one. Verse 18, of his own will begat he us. He birthed us, he caused us to
be born again. Begat he us, how? With the word
of truth. This word is the seed that God
uses, plants in the hearts of his people to give them life.
That's how they're born again is by this word. then God help us to preach this
word. It's the only way God's people
will be given life. That's why we're so insistent on preaching
this word. Look back at our text here, verse
16, 2 Timothy 3. Paul says, all scripture is given
by inspiration of God. Now this book, the book you're
holding in your lap, It's not the writings of men who knew
God and tell us what they think about God. This book is the Word
of God Himself. God spoke it and men wrote it. The Holy Spirit dictated to them
and they wrote what the Holy Spirit told them. Yes, men wrote
it, but it's the Word of God. This book is God Almighty telling
us who He is and how He saves sinners. then you can bank on
it, it's true, it's accurate. Because it came directly from
God, telling us about himself. I have this illustration, just
like your pastor. I'm a big fan of Cincinnati Reds. And if you're a Cincinnati Reds
fan, I can tell you what you love. You love 1975 and 1976. If you're a Reds fan, that's
what you love. We really hadn't had a whole lot to share about
since then. I mean, I love that big red machine. And my favorite
all-time player is Tony Perez. I mean, I love Tony Perez. I
mean, I love Tony Perez. Todd's got the little figurines
of the great eight in there. And you just go back there and
look at it sometime. I mean, old Tony, I mean, he even looks
cool. He is the coolest one of the bunch. He's a great player.
He's cool. I just love Tony Perez. And in my family, my love of
the big dog is well known. And Holly and Doug got me a biography
of Tony Perez. It was a great book. I loved
it. I learned stuff about Tony I did not know before. I loved
it. But you know what surprised me about that book? I learned
a lot about Tony. I loved it. I just devoured that
book. The author in it said this at the beginning of the book.
He said, Tony won nothing to do with this book. Tony wouldn't
talk to me. He wouldn't let me interview
him. He had no input on this book because he felt like his
life story was not worth anybody, you know, knowing about it. He
just didn't think it was worth it. And I learned a lot about Big
Dog there. I mean, I loved it. But it occurred
to me, how much more would I have learned about Tony Perez if Tony
Perez wrote the book? See, the book was written by
somebody who knew Tony. See where I'm going? How much
more would I have learned if it was written by the man himself?
This is God's word. He wrote it himself to tell us
who he is so that we'd know him, so that we'd bow to him, so that
we'd be in awe of him and believe him and bow and rest our soul
on him. And I believe this book because
God said it. That's all a believer needs to
know. God said it. I believe it. I
believe it. And I mentioned earlier about
this. Believers believe things in this book, even though we've
never seen them, even though there's no physical evidence
that they're true. As a matter of fact, many of
them are very contrary to human logic. A man raising other people
from the dead? A man raising himself from the
dead? I mean, these are things that
would be hard to believe. But you know, believing this book
is better than being an eyewitness of those miracles. You know that?
I'll show you that. Look at 2 Peter 1. Believing this book is better
than being an eyewitness of all those miracles that our Lord
performed. 2 Peter 1, verse 16. For we've not followed cunningly
devised fables, when we've made known unto you the power and
coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of his
majesty. For he received from God the
Father honor and glory, when there came such a voice to him
from the excellent glory, this is my beloved son, in whom I'm
well pleased. Now Peter here is talking about
the Mount of Transfiguration. Peter says, I saw this with my
own eyes, I heard this. And this voice which came from
heaven, we heard when we were with him in the Holy Mount. And
you know Peter's reaction to that. Peter was in awe, wasn't
he? But look what he says in verse 19. We have also a more
sure word of prophecy, whereunto you do well that you take heed,
as unto a light that shineth in a dark place, until the day
dawn and the day star arise in your hearts. Knowing this first,
the new prophecy of the scripture is of any private interpretation,
for the prophecy came not in old time by the will of man,
but holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost. Peter's telling us, oh, this
word is a greater miracle than all the miracles he saw as a
disciple of our Lord. This is the word of God given
to his people and there's no error in it. It's all truth because
these are the words of God himself and it contains everything. that God has to say to men, everything. Nothing in this book comes secondhand.
It all comes directly from God. And think about this book through
the ages, how it's been preserved. For thousands of years, this
has been preserved in its exact wording. Now I'm telling you
the only way that's possible is if God himself protected it. It's his word, and he protected
it. He preserved it. Men have written
a lot of books. Many of them fall to the ground,
and they're forgotten, haven't they? Not this book. Books of men can be burned. They
can be destroyed. They can be lost to history.
People today still grieve. Is it the Library of Alexandria
that burned, and they're all so upset? All the books and the
things of knowledge, what was lost in that? Not this book. It's been preserved. Men have
actively tried to stamp it out, and it spread more and more and
more, didn't it? Books of men can be lost to lack
of interest. Not the Word of God. God's children
have such an interest in this book, they love hearing a passage
preached that they may have just heard not so awful long ago,
and they hear it, and it blesses them again. They just, they love
it. My daughters tell me they'll
sometimes go to a Bible conference and Brother Todd will bring a
message he brought here a week or two or three weeks ago. And
they say, I get a blessing out of it more the second time than
I did the first time. You don't get that from Jane Eyre. You
don't get that from another book, do you? But you do from this,
you have an interest in it. Books of men can be lost because
they're proven wrong. How many books they used to write
showing the earth is flat, you know? Not this book. This book is pure,
unadulterated truth. This book contains everything
we need to know to trust Christ, to be saved, to have eternal
life. This book tells us everything we need to know to live looking
to and depending upon the Lord Jesus Christ, because it tells
us of Him. All right, number three. This word is so important. because it teaches us true doctrine.
Verse 16 in our text, Paul says it's profitable for doctrine. Now doctrine is teaching and
you'll notice that the apostle doesn't say it's profitable for
doctrines, different things to learn. He says it's profitable
for doctrine, one doctrine. What's he talking about there?
The doctrine of Christ. It's the doctrine, the teaching
of the whole book. The Bible was not written to
tell us how to live. The Bible's not written to tell
us how to be better spouses or better neighbors. It wasn't written
to tell us how to get more blessings and trinkets and stuff of this
life. This book teaches us the doctrine
of Christ. It teaches us that Christ is
all. He's all, and everything you
can think of, Christ is all. He's all in salvation. He's all
in life. He's all in religion. He's all
in doctrine. He's all in everything. The scripture
sums it up best by saying he's all and in all. Christ is all. Christ is all in righteousness.
The Lord Jesus Christ is the only man to ever live who obeyed
God's law perfectly. And that's what righteousness
is, to obey God perfectly. So the righteousness of Christ
is the only righteousness that there is. Does that make sense?
If he's the only one to obey the law, his righteousness is
the only righteousness that there is. Righteousness can't come
to you and me by our works of the law. Can't do it. If we're
trying to keep the law, something can come from it. You know what
it is? It's death. The wages of sin is death. The wages we earn from trying
to keep the law is death. We can only produce death. So
if you and I would be righteous, we can't produce it ourselves.
If we would be righteous, we must have Christ. We must have
Him and Him alone. And anything we've got that we
think will commend us to God, we gotta gather it up and throw
it away. It's gotta be Christ alone. Not Christ plus anything
I do, Christ alone. He's all in righteousness. He's
all in salvation. He's the only one who had a sacrifice
to offer that would please God. All those rivers of blood of
bulls and goats and sheep and lambs never put away sin, did
it? But by one sacrifice, he hath
perfected forever all of his people. If you and I would be
saved, Christ must be our savior. We must believe him. We must
be found in him. He's all in salvation. The doctrine
of the Bible, the teaching of every verse is Christ. And I
love it. It tells us how Christ is our
wisdom. He's our righteousness. He's
our sanctification. He's our redemption. He's our
bridegroom. He's our master. He's our Lord. He's our shepherd. He's our savior.
He's our friend. He's all. He's all we need. Every
passage of this book, every verse of it, every sentence of it proclaims
one person, one truth, the Lord Jesus Christ. And if you read
any passage and you don't see Christ in it, you say, well,
Christ is not there. Stop. I promise you, you've missed
the meaning of the text. Read it again and pray that the
Lord reveal Christ to you because he's the meaning of it. That's
why the whole book is written. Fourthly, this word is so important
because it gives us good reproof. Verse 16, Paul says it's profitable
for doctrine, for reproof. Now that word reproof means convincing,
and believers are convinced of some things. They're convinced
of every point of doctrine. They're convinced of every point
of the gospel by seeing Christ. That's how we're convinced, by
seeing Christ. Not because we've seen evidence,
not because somebody's artistically convinced us, but because we've
seen Christ. I'm convinced of this. I am totally
depraved. Everything about me is completely
and utterly defiled by sin. I am dead in sin. You know why
I'm convinced of that? Because by faith I see Christ.
And when I see Him in His glory, in His perfection, then I see
what I am. I'm like our brother, Job. Job
said, I've heard of you with the hearing of the ear. But now
mine eye seeth thee. Wherefore, I abhor myself. I used to love myself. Used to
think pretty highly of myself. Now I don't, because by faith
I've seen Christ. I know this, God must unconditionally,
and by that I mean this, without me meeting any condition at all,
without me doing anything to make myself qualified, God must
unconditionally elect a people to save. That's the only way
that I'll ever be accepted, if I'm elected in Christ, because
God never accepted me in myself. You know why I'm so convinced
of that? I've seen Christ by faith. Oh, there's just no doubt
in my mind, if I'm in Him, I'm going to be accepted. I'm convinced
in limited atonement. And limited atonement just means
this, Christ didn't die for every son of Adam. He died for his
elect and only his elect. His sacrifice is not limited
in the power of it to put away sin, it's limited in the scope
of it. He died for a specific people, the people that the Father
gave him to save and everyone for whom Christ died shall be
saved. Jonathan, they can't perish.
It's impossible. They cannot perish. I'm convinced
of that. You know why I'm convinced? Because
I've seen Christ by faith, and this I know, he can't fail to
do anything. Whatever it is he came to do,
he did. He couldn't fail to do it. I'm
convinced of this, that the Holy Spirit irresistibly draws God's
people to Christ, and He does it through the preaching of the
gospel. I'm convinced of that, because I've seen Christ by faith.
Anybody who ever gets a glimpse of the Lord Jesus Christ and
His glory, they won't be able to stay away from Him. They're coming to Christ, and
you better stay out of the way, because you're not getting between
them and the Savior. They're coming to Christ. They'll be
willing in the day of God's power, and you know what will make them
willing? To see Christ in His beauty, Christ in His sufficiency,
Christ in His glory, and they're gonna suddenly be willing to
bow and beg for mercy. They're gonna be drawn to Christ,
because He's just too glorious. Of course they're gonna come
to Him. And I'm convinced of this. that the saints are gonna
persevere to the end. I hate to sound like an old man.
I began a message a few weeks ago saying, from the time I was
a little fella, I've heard old men get up behind a pulpit and
say the world is just worse than it's ever been and there's just
no hope for it, it's gone. I'm one of the number now, you
know. But everything that's happening
in this world, it's awful, it's just, ugh, I wanna get off. But you know what? God's saints are gonna persevere
in it. It's not gonna draw them away
from Christ. It's not gonna pull them away from Christ. They're
not gonna be deceived. They're going to persevere to
the end, and they're going to awake in Christlikeness and glory. They're going to close their
eyes in this wretched, vile world, in this wretched, vile body,
and they're going to immediately open their eyes and see the face
of the Savior. I'm convinced of that. I'm convinced
that nothing in heaven, earth, or hell can stop it. You know
why? Because by faith, I've seen Christ. And I know this because I've
seen, I'm convinced of it. He's got the power and the love
to keep His people no matter what. They're not going to persevere
by their strength. They're going to persevere by
His. That's why I'm convinced of it. See, we could go on and
on and on, but you get the point. Everything a believer is convinced
about, I'm convinced, it depends on who we know. And if we know
Christ, we're convinced of this, there's nothing impossible with
Him. He's going to do all His will. He's gonna fulfill every
promise. His promises of grace and His
promises of justice. He's gonna fulfill every one
of them. And that lets me rest in Him. All right, the fifth
thing. This word is so important because
it corrects us. Paul says it's profitable for
doctrine, for reproof, and for correction. And we're going to
find that there are a lot of things we need to be corrected
about. And the first thing the world corrects us on is our thoughts
about ourselves and our thoughts about God. We're born into this
world thinking mighty highly of ourselves. We think that we're
good enough to please God. We think we can do something
that's so good that God will accept us. My mama told me I
was a good boy and I believed her. I just, you know, it's easy
to believe. That's what this flesh already
thinks. We're born in this world with an opinion of ourselves
that is far too high and an opinion of God that's far too low. And
this word is gonna correct us on that. It's gonna correct us.
It's gonna teach us that we're dead in sin. It's gonna teach
us who and what we are, that we have absolutely no ability
to please God. We will not come to God and we
cannot come to God. That's our nature. And this word
teaches us we're completely and utterly helpless, completely
dependent on God. And this word teaches us that
God is holy. He will by no means clear the guilty. That makes it sound like there's
no hope for us, doesn't it? We're guilty, that's all we are.
God's holy, he will by no means clear the guilty. But this is
the other thing God's word teaches us, that God is wise and he's
gracious. In his wisdom and in his grace,
he's provided a substitute for his people. His own darling Son,
who would take the sin and the guilt of His people away from
them and put it on Himself. He'd take their sins and His
own body upon the tree and by His sacrifice make them righteous,
so they're accepted in Him. This Word corrects us and teaches
us we think we don't need nothing. This Word corrects us and teaches
us we need Christ. I mean, above all else, we need
Him. We need Him to come save us from
our sin. And even believers need to be
corrected, constantly corrected. This word corrects the attitude
and the conduct of believers all through our lives. And you
know how it corrects us? Not by beating us with the law,
by always pointing us to Christ. It's like An airplane, as I understand
this, an airplane takes off going on a cross-country trip, and
they set that thing on autopilot. Way up there, there's winds and
currents and all these things, storms, trying to blow that plane
off its course. And that autopilot's constantly
correcting it, constantly correcting it to keep it on course so it
comes to its destination. That's what the Word of God does
for a believer, constantly correcting us, keeping us pointed to Christ.
I wish it wasn't true, but we become hateful sometimes, don't
we? And you know what'll correct that attitude? Hear it one more
time. God loved me in Christ. Oh, that'll
just soften your heart, won't it? It'll break your heart. That'll
correct us. Sometimes we become unforgiving,
and that attitude will be correct. when we hear how God, for Christ's
sake, forgave me. Oh, that makes me want to be
forgiving. Doesn't it, Hugh? There could be times we become lackadaisical
about worship. We become careless about helping
our brethren. And you know how that attitude's
corrected? by one more time hearing of Christ and His faithfulness,
that He's faithful to do everything that it took to save His people.
He's faithful to His people. He'll never leave them nor forsake
them. Oh, that makes me want to be faithful, don't you? There's
times we become greedy and stingy. We become greedy and stingy in
our giving. We become greedy and stingy in our thanks and
in trying to lift up our brethren. You know how that attitude is
corrected? We hear one more time how God gave his people the unspeakable
gift of his son. God gave me everything. Suddenly,
I'll become giving. See, it's all Christ. We're corrected
by seeing him, hearing of him. Six, this word is so important
because it instructs us in righteousness. Paul says this is good for instruction
in righteousness. You know, even believers will
fall into this trap of thinking that something that I can do
will add to my righteousness. Now, we all know, oh, before
God saved me, before He regenerated me, nothing I did, none of those
works, no, I don't trust any of them. But we fall into this
trap of thinking after God regenerated me, after He revealed Christ
to me and in me, there's things that I can do to kind of add
to my status, you know? God sees me as better as my brethren
because I do this and they don't do it. Or I don't do this and
they do that. You know why even a believer will fall into that
from time to time. You know why that is? Because this flesh is
alive and well. And that's what flesh is, it's
self-righteous. And you know how that attitude
will be corrected? When we hear of Jehovah Sidkenu,
the Lord our righteousness. When I hear of Christ, oh, He
is the only righteousness that I want. Either Christ is all
of my righteousness, or I don't have any. I'll put it all right
there. If I hear of Him, it's good to
be, He's all I want. Not only is He all I need, He's
all I want. Oh, it instructs us in righteousness. And last, this word is so important,
because it causes God's people to grow in grace. Verse 17, that
the man of God may be perfect. Throughly furnished unto all
good works. That word perfect means complete.
Complete. Everything you need, you're complete
in Christ. And throughly furnished means that in Christ, you've
been given everything that you need. Lord willing, next week,
our family's gonna go on vacation. I like to find a place for us
to go on vacation, a place where we can all stay. It's kind of
a game with me, you know? And I went looking for houses
to rent at the beach where we're going. And I started looking
at the pictures. And you know what I wanted to
know? Is the house furnished? There's six of us. Is there six
chairs around the table? Is there enough couches and chairs
there in the living room where we can all gather together and
sit? Is there beds for all of us? Is there enough beds for
all of us? Does the kitchen look like it's got enough stuff that
you can fix something to eat if you want? I want it to be
furnished well enough. Does it look comfortable? Does
it look nice? Believers are completely furnished in Christ. He's everything that you need,
completely righteous, completely holy, completely saved in the
Lord Jesus Christ. In Christ, we're given everything
that we need because He's everything that we need. And you know where
you find that out? In God's word. He tells us over
and over and over again. And this word causes God's people
to grow up, to grow in grace and to all good works. And you
know what a good work is? This is how our Lord defined
it. It's to serve the body of Christ. Seeking no glory and
no credit from me. Just serving you, the body of
Christ, because I love Christ. Now that kind of humility, that
kind of love, that kind of attitude can only come from being taught
the word of God. Oh, it's important, isn't it?
It's important, God's word. May God help us. to hear it and
to believe it, to believe on our Lord Jesus Christ. I hope
that'll be a blessing to you. Let's bow together in prayer.
Our Father, how we thank you for your word. What a miracle
of your grace that you've preserved it and that you've given it to
us to read and that you've given your people faith to believe
it, faith to believe and rest in our Lord Jesus Christ. Father,
I beg of you that you cause each of us as we leave here this evening,
having heard your word, to leave here believing in, resting in,
and rejoicing in Christ our Savior. It is in his blessed name we
pray and give thanks.