In 2 Timothy 3, Paul warns Timothy about people who act religious but are rejecting God’s power. Here are a few phrases he uses to explain these type of people:
In other words, they may go to church and say they are a Christian, but there is no evidence of it in their lives. They have probably heard or read the Bible, but they have not applied it to their lives.
When examining the American culture, this sounds really familiar. It may seem like fun in the moment to say your a Christian and the live the way you want, but what you are really doing is rejecting God’s power.
To make sure Timothy doesn’t get caught up in this nonsense, Paul is simply reminding him of the truth. Don’t follow these other people. Yes, their life my look fun for the moment, but it will end in destruction.
Let’s look at what Paul says to Timothy.
2 Timothy 3:16-17 NLT - All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right. God uses it to prepare and equip his people to do every good work.
To see God’s power in our lives, we must adopt this mindset, “All scripture is inspired by God. Not just some of it, but all of it.”
It doesn’t matter what this church says or that church says, or what grandma said growing up, we must believe that ALL scripture comes from God.
And if we find a truth in the Word that is contrary to what someone else believes, we believe the Word no matter how influential that person is in our lives. And if it is contrary to our own beliefs, then we update our beliefs.
It’s easy to get stuck trying to make the Word fit in what is comfortable for you. But when you do that, you are rejecting God’s power in your life.
Maybe the baptism of the Holy Spirit makes you uncomfortable, so you reject that part of the Word. Or, maybe the idea of prosperity makes you uncomfortable, so you reject it.
Yet, the idea that God wants you to prosper is not only found in the New Testament but in the Old as well. It is all throughout the Bible! We just get mixed up because the Word also says not to let money have you.
This isn’t one or the other, it’s both. God wants you to be prosperous without money having you. Funny thing is, you don’t even have to have money for money to have you.
So, that’s just one example. But churches and denominations all around the world are picking and choosing what they want to believe from the Bible. And if you follow suit, you’ll never find yourself living limitless life in Jesus.
At some point, you may have questioned the Bible. After all, it was just written by ordinary men, right?
2 Peter 1:20-21 NLT - Above all, you must realize that no prophecy in Scripture ever came from the prophet’s own understanding, or from human initiative. No, those prophets were moved by the Holy Spirit, and they spoke from God.
Reading the Bible is different than reading a book. Yes, they both were written by a person, but we can be 100% confident that every part of the Bible was inspired by God.
In other words, when Paul was writing most of the new testament, God was pouring into him and Paul was writing. Paul wasn’t sitting there trying to think of what to write. He was writing the very words of God.
This isn’t to say that there aren’t other books out there inspired by God. But the Bible should always be our constant. If we read something that doesn’t agree with the Bible, we always believe the Bible.
Because we can be 100% confident that every word in the Bible was inspired by God.
It took 1,600 years and 40 different writers for us to get the entire Bible. The writers came from all walks of life. Some were fishermen; some were shepherds. Others were kings or politicians.
They were from three different continents, and wrote in three different languages. They wrote in dungeons, in temples, on beaches, and on hillsides, during peacetime and during war. Yet their words sound like they came from the same source.
Even though they wrote on hundreds of controversial subjects, they wrote with agreement and harmony.
So even though I couldn’t get ten of you to write on one controversial subject and agree, God picked forty different people to write the Bible and somehow it all agrees.
Throughout history, people have tried to destroy the Bible. Kings would order for every single Bible to be burned. Entire countries would outlaw the Bible. And the church itself, thinking it was doing people a favor, attempted to keep the Bible out of the hands of “ordinary people”.
In 1320 John Wycliffe worked to give people the Bible in a language they could understand. He was eventually hunted down and burned at the stake by church leaders for doing this.
Shortly after the invention of the printing press, William Tyndale was the first to translate the Bible to English and had it printed. Priests and bishops burned thousands of copies of his translation as a "burnt offering most pleasing to the Almighty God". And then they burned William too.
Despite attempts to destroy the Bible, it has now been translated into over 1,400 languages and is the most read book in the world.
And get this, when the Dead Sea Scrolls were discovered in 1947 they found every book of the Old Testament except Esther. And when they compared theses scrolls from 70 A.D. to our current Bible, it was amazingly accurate, with most mistakes only being spelling errors and slips of the pen.
You see, through the years, the Bible was passed on by someone copying it by hand. Over and over and over this happened. Yet, it made it all the way to us today practically untouched.
All of this is evidence that the Bible was inspired by God and even protected by God. And it’s a privilege to have the Bible in our pockets every day. Because several generations ago, most people couldn’t even get their hands on one.
Yet today we take it for granted. Most Christians in America only read it casually, if at all. And we like to pick out the pieces that work for us and allow us to live the way we want to.
But, let’s go back to the scripture we read earlier.
2 Timothy 3:16-17 NLT - All Scripture is inspired by God and is useful to teach us what is true and to make us realize what is wrong in our lives. It corrects us when we are wrong and teaches us to do what is right. God uses it to prepare and equip his people to do every good work.
Hm. All this time I’ve been moulding the Bible to fit my life, when the Bible was designed to mould my life to become who I was meant to be.
Bottom line, if we want the power of God to work in our lives, we have to believe the entirety of God’s Word, not just bits and pieces. It has to reign as supreme truth in our lives.
And this isn’t a bad thing, because when you believe all of God’s Word, you get to grab ahold of all of the amazing promises.
2 Peter 1:3-4 NLT - By his divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a godly life. We have received all of this by coming to know him, the one who called us to himself by means of his marvelous glory and excellence. And because of his glory and excellence, he has given us great and precious promises. These are the promises that enable you to share his divine nature and escape the world’s corruption caused by human desires.
God provided His Word not to get on to us, but to lead us into His promises and give us freedom from the world’s corruption.
So when we read in Proverbs 11:24 that when we give, it will come back to us with increase, it’s because God wants us to walk in that promise.
And when we read in Jeremiah 29:11 that God has plans to prosper us, it’s because He wants us to live in that promise.
When we read in 3 John 1:2 that health is supposed to come with prosperity, it’s because God wants us to live in that promise and be free from sickness.
And it’s not to put you down, but to lead you into the promises of God.
When you are corrected by the Word, it is never a bad thing. Because the correction is coming from love itself and the end result is always an amazing promise.
Yet we often get deceived by the short-term benefits of following our own way, and when we do that we might as well throw God’s promises in the trash.
We are only fooling ourselves when we think that our way is better than what the Bible is telling us to do. We think we are doing ourselves a favor but we are really just rejecting God’s power.
You may be thinking, “Kade, didn’t you just tell us not to live in regret? Then why are you bringing up my mistakes?”
I bring this before you not for you to look backwards, but to shine a light on something that you forgot was even there.
Imagine yourself walking through the house at night. There’s a big, hairy spider on the floor but you can’t see it. But, if I turned the light on for you and gave you a shoe, you could spot it and smash it.
This is what the Word does in our lives. It shines a light on the things that don’t need to be there and then gives us the power we need to smash it, get rid of it and move on.
Maybe you are having sex outside of marriage but you know it’s not God’s best for your life. Or, maybe you stopped giving or have never even started. Yet, you know it is not God’s best for your life.
Whatever it is, I imagine we all have something in our lives where we’ve been following your own way even though we know the Bible has shown us a better way.
Today is not the day to feel bad about yourself. It’s the day you let the Word show you what is wrong and start moving towards what is right.
Don’t look backwards. Don’t get overcome with regret. Look forward and leave the sin and the regret behind. Because Jesus has made you brand new and forgiveness is already there.
So, we’ve talked about how all scripture is inspired by God. And if we want to see God’s power work in our lives then we must believe the entirety of the Word, not just the things that keep us comfortable.
We also took a look at the history of the Bible and found out that although it was written by man, it did not come from man. God inspired every word that was written and He has protected it through thousands of years.
And when we believe the Word is truth, we also believe that every promise in the Word is for us. Whether it is a promise in the old testament or new testament, we should take God at His word and see those promises in our lives.
Before we end today, let’s talk about one of the most amazing promises in the Word that a majority of Christians are leaving on the table.
After Jesus was crucified and rose again on the third day, there were forty days when He appeared to the apostles from time to time before ascending into heaven. Right before He ascended into heaven, here is what He told them:
Acts 1:8 NLT - You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be my witnesses, telling people about me everywhere.
You’d think that the men who actually got to spend time with Jesus face-to-face would have all the power they needed. But Jesus said the power would come when the Holy Spirit came upon them.
If the apostles needed the power of the Holy Spirit to be witnesses for Jesus, how much more do we need the power of the Holy Spirit? I know you can agree with me there.
So how do we receive the power of the Holy Spirit?
Acts 2:38 NLT - Each of you must repent of your sins and turn to God, and be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. Then you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
We’ve talked about leaving sin and regret in the past and clinging to the forgiveness of Jesus Christ. And that’s the first step to receiving the Holy Spirit.
Baptism in this scripture is not talking about water baptism. It is talking about when you give your life to Jesus. Because when you do that, your old self is put to death like Jesus was. And you rise up brand new, sinless and perfect.
If you haven’t done this already, take a moment right where you are to give your life to Jesus. Simply say, “Jesus, I know I am a sinner and can’t save myself. I thank you for paying the price to save me. I commit my life to you and leave my old way behind.”
The only requirement to receive the Holy Spirit is to turn to God through Jesus, which is what we just did. Now, all we have to do is ask for the Holy Spirit.
Luke 11:13 NLT - So if sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask him.
Wow. It really is that simple. Just ask your heavenly Father for the gift of the Holy Spirit. Let’s take time to do that now, right where you sit.
2 Corinthians 13:14 AMP - The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God, and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all.
Now that you’ve received the gift of the Holy Spirit, take time to relate to Him daily. He wants fellowship with you and wants to be a part of your daily life.
It’s time to realize that you won’t get very far in your own strength. Limitless life in Jesus only comes whenever we receive power from the Holy Spirit on a daily basis by letting the Word transform us and spending time with our minds focused on Him.
Can you make a commitment to do this starting today?
Because when you do, not only is your life going to radically change, but you life is going to impact the world in a big way.
