The Good Soldiers Handbook

Introduction

• II Timothy 3:16 “All Scripture is breathed out by God and is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.”

• Today we have the privilege of placing ourselves within earshot of the Apostle Paul as he gives instruction to the young pastor Timothy.
• Paul the seasoned veteran of the mission field and of the local church knows that his life is drawing to a close, the Emperor Nero will soon end his life, and Paul has some final thoughts for Timothy.
• As is true for most of us, when we see our life beginning to grow dim we begin to focus on the most important of things. Paul also began to do this and began by writing a letter of encouragement and admonition to Timothy.
• Timothy, one of Paul’s converts from about 15 years prior in Paul’s ministry, was the aging apostle’s favorite pupil. No one else received the accolades that Timothy did; he is mentioned in several of Paul’s other letters and also in the book of Hebrews.
• Timothy, even though he had been appointed by Paul as an overseer or pastor, in the churches of Ephesus it appears that Timothy was still as human as you and I.
• Because I don’t have luxury of walking us through the book of II Timothy as a multi-week study (much like we did with Ephesians) I am forced to give you the background material right up front at the beginning in order to properly set the stage for understanding II Timothy 3:16
• So let me backup just a bit
• It appears Paul had heard reports of Timothy’s conduct, he sensed Timothy’s doubts; it appears that Timothy had doubts about the gospel, doubts about his role in spreading the gospel, and conflicts warring in his own mind.
• We can see in chapter 1 and verse 6 Paul tells Timothy to “stir up the gift of God which is in you…” Why would Paul tell Timothy to “stir up the gift?”
• It sounds as if Paul is drawing a reference to stirring a fire that is going out so you can bring some fresh air to the coals and burn some of the unburnt material. You would only say this to someone who is faltering in one or more areas of life.
• Also if you take a look at (and we are moving quickly here through these, or course we could say much more about this) verse 7, Paul admonishes Timothy to replace fear with what? With power, love and a sound mind.
• Verse 8 continues, and this is one of the strongest statements Paul makes to Timothy, “don’t be ashamed of the testimony of our Lord or me His prisoner, but share with me in the sufferings of the gospel according to the power of God.”
• It would appear that Timothy was having some rather severe struggles in his life. Keep in mind this is pastor Timothy that Paul is speaking to, the same person who probably read Paul’s letter to the Ephesians in the Ephesian church and then also got to explain what Paul meant in the more difficult portions.
• This same pastor has weakened from the pressures of the world, the pressure that comes from persecution all around. So Paul admonishes Timothy in chapter two to persevere, to be strong, to follow the rules.
Now if Timothy, a pastor, and a man, personally trained by the apostle Paul was having doubts about his role in the kingdom and was struggling with kingdom living then it seems to me that we can all get some good instruction by listening in on what Paul tells Timothy.

• Now back to the text: “All Scripture is breathed out by God and is profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness.”

All Scripture.

• Paul is about to make some rather remarkable statements about Scripture in the rest of this verse. His audience, Timothy, knew what he meant by all Scripture but it is important that we know what he meant.
• This statement here “All scripture is God breathed” or “breathed out by God” is rather remarkable because Paul simply states it as fact, he doesn’t try to defend the position he just tosses it out there.
• Now keep in mind, unlike some of Paul’s other writings the purpose of the book of II Timothy is not to introduce new theology to us. Timothy was already quite aware of Paul’s theology. Paul’s intent here was merely to remind and encourage Timothy in the things he already knew.
• So Paul states very plainly that God breathed out the Scriptures. He doesn’t bother to explain how this all worked he just says it. Peter on the other hand gives us insight into how this process works, in II Peter chapter 1 and verse 2 he writes for us: “but men spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.”
• So the authorship is established but the context is still holy men of old, Peter is still talking about the Old Testament, what about the New Testament.
• Well Peter gets to that in II Peter 3 and verse 15 and following which reads: “And count the patience of our Lord as salvation, just as our beloved brother Paul also wrote to you according to the wisdom given him, ¹⁶as he does in all his letters when he speaks in them of these matters. There are some things in them that are hard to understand, which the ignorant and unstable twist to their own destruction, as they do the other Scriptures.”
• So there we have Peter, the pillar of the church in Jerusalem, an apostle and a man who walked with Jesus and even saw him transfigured on the mount equating what Paul writes and placing it on the level of the OT Scriptures.
• So thinking back to II Timothy 3 we need to understand that all Scripture in this context is the whole of the Word of God.
• It doesn’t just contain the words of God, even though yes God’s words are in there. But more importantly it is in its entirety the very words of God.
• Think back to Peter … but men spoke from God as they were carried along… Even though God worked through the words, the thoughts, and the emotions of the writer God directed every word onto the page so that the final product was an exact autograph of God and his very character and nature are dripping from the page.

Breathed out by God

• The next part of the verse we come to is …breathed out by God… or …God breathed… in the NIV. If you have NIV you may want to make a note in your margin and write the word “OUT” after God breathed because this is what the Greek literally says.
• When we think of breathing we generally think of breathing in. If you are at your doctor’s office and he says take a deep breath how many of you go phew and blow all your breath out?
• The distinction is an important one, God didn’t breath in but rather just like Genesis 2:7 where God breathed the breath of life into Adam and Adam became a living being so God breathes out and His Word becomes living doesn’t it? Hebrews 4:12 “…For the word of God is living and active.”
• Why else is it important that God breathed the Scriptures that you are holding in your hand? Well for one thing when God breathed life into the Scripture it became the fingerprint or even better the DNA of God himself.
• Ill. Right now in LA according to Police Chief William Bratton, there is a shortage of DNA testers due to the budget shortfall in California.

· And due to this lack of testers the concern is that the Police dept. will be unable to positively identify the criminals that they want to turn over to the prosecutor’s office.

• We have all seen TV shows where DNA is what allows the police to catch the criminal, but why is DNA so important? It is because it is so unique that it can’t be wrong, it is proof positive of the ID of the person in question.
• If you hold a blood sample in your hand of a given person you have enough information to positively identify them from every other person on this planet.
• Likewise the copy of the word of God that you hold in your hand bears enough information about the God of the universe, the God of creation, and the God that walked among men for 33 ½ years to then die on a cross and be raised to life again just three days later to save my souls and yours that He can be positively identified by what we know of Him from His word.
• When we come to situations in life and we wonder whether God is in it or not, all we have need of is looking to the Word because all we need that pertains to life and godliness is already there for us.
• The authors DNA is all over His inspired book, that is why God-breathed out is so important. Every religion in the world has some form of sacred writings but how many of them can say that the message was written by God Himself?
• All Scripture is breathed out by God and is profitable for…
• Paul now begins of a series of four things that the Scriptures are profitable for.
• I think it is important to note that these following four things the Scriptures is profitable for must be unique to the Scriptures or otherwise Paul wouldn’t be drawing attention to it like he is.
• Another way of saying this would be to say that Scripture alone is profitable for these four things. While it is possible to perhaps have one or two of these items in an isolated context the four of them together is the unique prerogative of the Scriptures.
• We come to our first of four and that is Teaching
• Paul reminds Timothy, remember Paul isn’t teaching Timothy something new rather he is just reminding him of what he already knows. So Paul reminds Timothy that the Scripture is useful for teaching.
• So lets think about what kind of statement that is, that word of God, or in other words the Scriptures are useful for teaching.
• Ill. As some of you may be aware one of our children must go to UCLA a few times a year to see a pediatric urologist there by the name of Dr. Bernard Churchill.
• Now for us one of the major benefits of seeing Dr. Churchill is he is the professor of urology at UCLA and is also the head of the Clark-Morrison urology center at UCLA so as you can imagine he is the top of his field.
• In fact he is one of the top 4 Doctors in the whole country for the particular specialty that we are in need of. He has about 2-3 times the experience of most anyone else in this field.
• When doctors all over the country need more info on how to perform a procedure or what is the best care for this particular sort of problem they head straight for the textbook to find out what Dr. Churchill has to say on the issue.
• Not only that but Dr. Churchill rotates students through his office and takes them into surgery with him so he can teach them his doctrine, his dogma, his methodologies for performing surgeries on urology patients.
• When you want to learn about urology you don’t turn to the Cliff Notes on the subject, you don’t turn to one of his students notes, you go straight to the source, to the teacher himself to find out what he says on this particular subject.
• That is what Paul is reminding Timothy of here and in a way he is also reminding you and me of this same thing.
• Commentaries are good and helpful, devotionals can be profitable, Bible studies serve a purpose but the best teaching comes straight from the word of God itself.
• The word of God is the textbook for life that we should be learning by.
• Just like urologists now where to turn for more information a Christian should also know where to turn for more information. To be taught and learn right head for the source.
• Reproof
• The next thing that Paul reminds Timothy of is that the Word is useful for reproof. Now here is a word that we don’t use everyday in casual English, or do we? Let me give you an illustration of this word in a normal day.
• Ill. Back in November of 2002 many Californians hung close to their Television sets watching and waiting the outcome of a certain trial.
• Winona Ryder was being tried on three charges and when the deliberating was done the jury read this verdict
• We the jury find the defendant, Winona Ryder, guilty of the charge of vandalism (over $400 in damage) in violation of penal code 594A, a felony.
• And they continued through all three charges.
• Throughout the course of the trial the evidence was presented that she had done the things alleged and when her actions were viewed in light of the laws of the State of California she was found to be violation of those laws and she needed to be reproved or rebuked.
• When the jury read the verdict that was the rebuke. Later the judge sentenced her for the crime, that was the punishment, but the rebuke was from the jury.
• The word Paul uses here that is translated reproof or rebuke in your English Bible is a Greek word that literally means “tell a fault and show the evidence.”
• Is this not exactly what takes place in a trial when the accused is guilty; the charge is brought, the evidence is provided, the verdict is read and the guilty is rebuked.
• Paul is reminding Timothy here that in addition to needing to come under the teaching of the Word he also needs to come under the rebuke or reproof of the Word.
• As believers when we read the Word of God, God is able through His Holy Spirit to speak to our hearts and convict us of sin and unrighteousness.
• Maybe God has already rebuked you for something, maybe you know it isn’t right but what do you do about that now? You take it to God.
• As God is faithful to rebuke us, we need to be faithful to confess as 1 John 1:9 tells us and allow God to cleanse us from the unrighteousness.
• Important point of distinction here, do not confuse God identifying sin in your life with righteousness. For some people God puts his finger on something in your life and you get so excited that God spoke to you that it stops there, God identified but you never acted upon it.
• When God identifies sin it is for one reason, to cause you to want to make it right. You need to agree with God that sin is sin, don’t re-label or re-package it as something else, don’t term it a minor infraction.
• Call it what it is, agree with God, then confess it and ask His forgiveness. He will forgive and He will cleanse but you must ask.
  
  
• Correction
• Next we come to correction. Correction is a somewhat interesting word because in the Greek it is really a compound word.
• The word means literally to make upright and straight. It bears with it a word picture of a gardener who finds a plant that was been stepped on or for some other reason is improperly growing at an angle close to the ground.
• The good gardener will take that plant and we will gently right it into an upright position.
• However just taking a living plant that is lying on its side and picking it up will do little if anything for the plant because the plant will just fall over again.
• In order to be successful the gardener must stake the plant with straight rod or pole of some sort but the key here is that the pole must be straight so it will train the plant to grow straight as well.
• The rod or pole here is the Word of God and the Gardener is the Holy Spirit. As we read the words of Scripture not only do they rebuke as we looked at a moment ago but they serve to correct us or to straighten us so we are once again back on the straight-and-narrow, so to speak.
• God’s Holy Spirit and God’s Holy word are the agents that make us straight and upright in our thoughts and conduct.
• If you are trapped in a sin, perhaps a secret sin that those around you are not aware of, and you know it is sin; you have been rebuked you know that it is not God’s best for your life yet you continue to struggle, there is hope for you.
• This isn’t my word on the subject this is the God speaking through the apostle Paul. The text says the All Scripture…is profitable for…correcting. In other words making upright, making straight.
• If you know that what you have done is wrong, God has rebuked, you have confessed, you have tried to turn from sin but the next thing you know you are right back in the same sin again you need the heavenly Gardener to make you straight.
• We talk a lot around here in little catchy phrases. One of those phrases is to equate the Christian life to a wooden stool. And this stool has legs on it and if any of those legs are missing or are too short the stool becomes unstable and no one can sit on it.
• Whenever someone tells me they are struggling with a habitual sin one of the first things I am going to ask them about is their stool, are they praying, are they going to church, are they sharing their faith, and are they…reading the Scripture.
• If any of those are lacking and particularly daily Bible reading you can almost be assured you have your answer why this sin is a habitual problem in their life.
• The antibiotic that allows us as Christians to overcome our flesh and it’s desires and empowers us to walk in the Spirit is the Scriptures.
• If you aren’t daily in the Word then you aren’t getting enough of the prescription to fight off the infection of sin, it really is that simple.
Instruction in righteousness
The final component that Paul identifies for us here is “Instruction in righteousness”
Again the original Greek is helpful for the word in Greek bears with it the connotation that one is being not only instructed but is actually being educated in the matter at hand.
Lots of people teach subject matters everyday, and even larger number of people actually listen to the instruction being given but only a percentage are actually being educated by what they are being taught.
For some they simply are not paying attention therefore they can’t learn, for others they don’t have the necessary background to understand the material being presented.
What ever the reason is not all instruction leads to learning taking place however Paul says of the Scripture that it is profitable for instruction or in other words education in righteousness.
The word also bears the idea of discipline in mind. We are to be disciplined in righteousness or more simply put in right living, that is to be a discipline in our lives.
So we have seen that not only is it necessary that we are rebuked, and we have seen that we are in need of being made straight again but now we see that we must replace those previous thoughts and actions with a righteous counterpart.
If we don’t choose to do this, if we instead decide that we in and of ourselves are strong enough to continue in the Lord then consider 1 Corinthians 10:12 “Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall.”
Unless the unrighteousness is replaced by righteousness the emptiness will get filled back up but it won’t be the Spirit who fills it.

Conclusion/Application

• If it is God-breathed then it is good for these things, that which is not God-breathed is not valuable for these things.
• Parents, if you are looking for a standard in your home, look no further; if you do choose to look further don’t expect the results to be the same for they can not be the same because the author is different.
• You know Paul didn’t worry about Timothy too much after this point, you know how I know this?
• Chapter 4, in chapter four Paul shifts his focus in chapter one he was telling Timothy not to be ashamed of the gospel, in chapter two he commands him to flee youthful lusts and be strong in the Lord.
• Come chapter four it is beautiful, Paul knew how Timothy would respond so he says in chapter four, “Preach the Word” get back to basics, this is the key in these days, preach the word.
• Let me make a quick point, by drawing your attention down to verse 17. We don’t have time to cover it in detail but let us briefly look at. It says: “that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good work.”
• You see the outcome of this laboring in the Scripture is that you will be complete, lacking nothing to accomplish good works or in other words, Kingdom work.
• Just to make sure the goal comes into sight, what is the answer that John gets when he asks the question of the Angel “what are these white robes”.
• Do you recall the answer that is recorded for us in Revelation, these white robes are the righteous deeds of the saints. Righteous deeds are just another way of saying good works. The good works, the righteous deeds, the Kingdom work (whatever you call it) the works we do here on earth weave the garment we will wear for all of eternity.
• That is the goal that Paul wants to bring to light here, yes there most certainly is personal reward for this but it brings great glory to God to see his people complete, thoroughly equipped here on earth.
• Final thought for you before we leave today.
• Four fold approach,
• Identify the standard
• Present the evidence that the standard wasn't followed
• Rectify the situation (make straight)
• Instruct in truth so as to prevent further infractions
This fourfold approach is useful not only for individuals but whole churches as well.

• If you are here today and you have sin in your life, God has put his finger on it then you need to confess it today.
• If you are here today and you are living in sin, God