Be Perfect Through His Word

[00:00:00] And turn to 2 Timothy chapter 3. 2 Timothy chapter 3. I'm still preaching through the commands of Christ, and it seems like one of these now I've kind of gotten stuck on. And that is that command that Jesus gives to be perfect. He says, Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect. When I started on that command, I didn't realize quite how often the Bible speaks about being perfect. [00:00:36] I've had three other messages so far, and that is how we need to be perfect in love, perfect in our words, and perfect in patience. This morning I want to go here to 2 Timothy chapter 3, and the last two verses of that chapter, are verses that are familiar to us, but I see again where it talks about being perfect. [00:01:06] And that is that in verse 16, all scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect. Furnished, thoroughly furnished unto all good works Now that's a lot in that And this morning we want to look at this passage [00:01:40] I'd really like to back up and look at the whole chapter for a little bit Before we get into that last part Because I think it's important that we get the setting of these verses I think sometimes we kind of tend to pick out verses and we kind of put them in our setting. But I think it helps us to really get the true sense of Scripture when we put it into the context and the setting that it's given. [00:02:13] Now, I believe that perfection is the goal that God has given to us. And He's given us a book. He's given us His Word, a Word that comes from Him. And it's a book like no other book that has ever been or ever will be. And I believe that this book is one that when we submit to the author of this book, [00:02:47] that it's going to become alive to us. Some people know the Bible. There's people that probably know the Bible better than I do. And yet, if we don't take and really submit to the author of it, it's not going to change our lives. But when we do, the Bible becomes alive and real, and it's powerful in our lives, and it will help us and will bring us to perfection that the Lord wants to happen in our lives. [00:03:21] Now, I'd like to start, first of all, and look at the first part of the chapter, because it deals with life, and it deals with where we're at. In the first nine verses of this chapter, it's talking about the last days. In that verse one, it says, But let us know also that in the last days perilous times shall come. And I've come to the place where I believe that's where we live today. As I have watched now for a number of years, more years than I like to say, I think, but as I have watched now, I believe we are to this place, I have seen tremendous changes, just in my lifetime, and some of you are older than I am and have seen more than I have, but I believe we are in this time. [00:04:17] As I read these next few verses, and I'm not going to make a lot of comment on each thing, but just stop and think about how our society is this way. It says that, For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, Unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, truce breakers, false accusers, incontinent means no control [00:05:00] Fierce, despisers of those that are good Traitors, heady, high-minded, lovers of pleasure more than lovers of God Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof, from such turn away In other words, he's saying here that people that are in this are even those that put on a front of knowing God Having a form of godliness [00:05:30] Of this sort are they which creep into houses and lead captive silly women Laden with sins, led away with divers lost It seems like this list doesn't end, doesn't it? It seems like the list just sort of goes on and on and on And I believe that we see this all around us today That's the kind of culture and society we are living in Ever learning, verse 7, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth [00:06:06] He's not talking there about learning normally, getting an education and so on. But he's talking about here the people that are always trying to find some new thing. They're always trying to find a shortcut to truth and finding a shortcut to what is right. They don't want to really take what it really is, but they want some other way. Ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. Now as Janus and Jambres withstood Moses, who were those two men? [00:06:42] Don't feel bad, I had to look it up too. Those were two Egyptian sorcerers that when Moses did the miracles before Moses, it said they withstood Moses. And they must have been two that really started, they didn't even give their names in the Old Testament. And I'm not sure where Paul got them. But they must have access to those names. It must have been two men that particularly were in opposition to Moses. So do these also resist the truth? [00:07:16] Men of corrupt minds reprobate concerning the faith. Now, we look at that as really being powerful. We look at the evil around us as being very strong. And it seems like there's nothing that can be done. But verse 9 says, But they shall proceed no further, for their folly shall be manifest, or be made known unto all men as theirs, theirs as Janice and Jambres also was. [00:07:47] And so, I think we need to realize that while we live in all of this kind of wickedness, and all the culture and everything that is around us, we realize that the time is going to come when it is going to end. And it's not going to be something that is going to destroy us as believers. Now, we see then in the next several verses, in verses 10 and 11, we see the contrast between that and Paul's life. [00:08:21] And what a contrast it is. It's a terrific contrast between them. Paul says here, but thou hast fully known my doctrine, what he taught, you fully know in my manner of life, my purpose, the faith that I display, the longsuffering, the charity or the love, the patience, the persecutions, the afflictions, which came unto me at Antioch and at Iconium, at Lystra, read about those in the book of Acts. [00:08:55] It says, what persecutions I endured, but out of them all the Lord delivered me. Now what a contrast Paul's life was to this whole long list that he gives before this. And it truly is a contrast. And it's going to be the kind of life that those in the first list are going to look at and just simply ridicule. [00:09:27] And they're going to say, you know, it's worthless. And they're going to poke all kinds of fun at. They're going to just simply say it's not even worth talking about. And that's what people, a lot of those people, would want to say about it. And so you have all kinds of high-sounding criticisms about him. But now in the next two verses, Paul gives two promises. Maybe you don't think about these as promises, but they are. [00:10:00] He gives two promises in the next two verses. Yea, in verse 12, all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution. I think in a video, one of those recent ones we've had on Sunday evening with Walter Beachy, He's talked about that, I think it was maybe last Sunday night That promise that all who live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution You think about that as a promise? You know when we think about the promises of God [00:10:30] We like to think about He'll take care of us and all the good things that God will give to us But this is also a promise And I think that we could even look at this as a promise, as a good promise that he's given to us. Even though we may not enjoy it. But it is a promise. Verse 13 is also another promise. And that promise is, But evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived. [00:11:04] And so he's saying here, the Lord is saying that this is what's going to happen. Things are going to wax worse and worse. They're going to get worse and worse. And if you're looking for this world to get better and better, you're going to be disappointed. We always hear that phrase that a lot of people use, you know, we're trying to make this world a better place to live. Well, that's good. We need to do that if we can. [00:11:37] But really, overall, it's going to get worse and worse. And that's just one of the things that is going to happen. Now, that is not something that should cause us to despair. But it should stop and make us ask the question, How are we going to live in this kind of a time, in this kind of a culture? How are we going to survive? Now, maybe the way we ought to do it, not maybe, but the way that sometimes people think we ought to do it [00:12:16] is that we all pool our resources together and go off in the warm Pacific Ocean and find a nice island someplace and buy it and all move there. And surely we could get away from all the things that happen around us. Is that true? Kind of sounds inviting sometimes, doesn't it? Or, we could just build enough walls around us here that we could keep all the evil out. [00:12:49] Well, we know that those things don't work. People have tried it down through the years, and it doesn't work. We know that if we could take all of us and go off to an island someplace, we'd have our own set of problems, wouldn't we? We'd soon develop our own set of problems. And so that doesn't work. We need to live. We need to be able to live right where we're at, right in the society that we do. But we need to live in such a way that we can live above that whole list of things that it's talking about here [00:13:26] In the first part of the chapter, that long list Those are not the things for the Christian to be involved in We are to be separated from those things But how do we do that? How do we make it possible that that can happen? And I believe that Paul here is teaching that how we can do it. He goes on in verse 14, and I believe here he begins to show now how that we can become perfect, [00:13:57] even in the midst of such a wicked and terrible world. Even in what we've seen here this morning already, We can still become what God wants us to be, even in the midst of all of that. In verse 14, he starts out by saying that, Timothy, and he says it to us, you already have access to what it takes. You already have access to what it takes. [00:14:29] You don't have to be like one of those few verses back in verse 7 that says, You're ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. That's not where we're at. We know what we have. We know what we need. And he's saying here in verse 14, But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned, and hast been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them. And he's saying, Timothy, you already have what you need. [00:15:01] Your mother and your grandmother taught you the scriptures. And you have that. Now continue in those things. And I had to think, you know, we have also had that. Most of us here have started out from Sunday school, and from our very youngest years have went to Sunday school. We started out learning those little children's verses. [00:15:34] By the way, I don't think there's such a thing as little children's verses. I realize there's some verses that are easier to learn for children than others. You know, you have the little verse, God is love. We teach that to little children. Be ye kind one to another And we kind of look at those as children's verses But those are adult verses And those are verses we need to take to heart as adults But we have the message, or we have the scriptures [00:16:05] And we have those that are, the things that are true It says in 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. And this is what I want to emphasize so much this morning. And that is that if we are going to come to perfection in Christ, that it's going to need to be through the scriptures. [00:16:43] It's going to need to be through the Word of God. Many people today want to substitute other things for their scriptures. They want to substitute and say, you know, if I can just get the right kind of psychology, or if I can just get the right kind of technology, and all of those types of things, that somehow that can become a substitute for the Word of God. And we all appreciate psychology to a certain extent. There are some things we can learn about how our minds work and so on. [00:17:14] We appreciate technology and those things. But those things are never a substitute for the pure Word of God and the life-changing Word that takes place in our lives. There's no substitute for that. You know, I'm so glad. I'm so glad that our being able to have the Word of God and being able to experience the Word of God in our lives [00:17:45] that is something that we don't have to have a Ph.D. for. It's not something we have to be highly educated for. But it's something that we can in simple faith believe and accept and let work in our lives. Now, let's just look at verse 16 there. And let's see a little bit of what the Scriptures do for us. He first of all makes the claim here that all Scripture is given by the inspiration of God. [00:18:23] Now, just, I don't know if it was this last time or just recently, Brother Walter, in one of the videos, talked about the fact that he said that there's a big difference between if the Bible is the Word of God, or does the Bible contain the Word of God. And I just want to make sure we all understand what he's saying there. And that is that, do we believe our Bible, the complete Bible, is the Word of God? [00:18:56] Or do we believe that our Bible that we have just contains the Word of God? And if we believe that our Bible just contains the Word of God, then we run into a big problem. Because then we have to decide which of it is the Word of God. As we go through the Bible, we have to decide then, now, is this the Word of God, or isn't it? And so we become, we become the one that makes that determination. [00:19:31] Don't you see a lot of danger in that? If I can determine what is the Word of God, don't you think that I'm going to determine that kind of to favor me? I'm going to determine that so that it doesn't affect my conscience. You know, there's things in the Bible that I read sometimes that it affects my conscience. And I say, oh, you know, that's not right. But if I can say, well, you know, that's really not the Word of God, then I can soothe my conscience. [00:20:07] And that's why it's so dangerous for us to take that position of what the Word of God is. We need to take the entire Scriptures as being the Word of God. All Scripture is given by inspiration of God. God inspired man to write the Scriptures, and we can believe in it and take it for that. Now, here's what the Scripture does. It says it is profitable for doctrine. [00:20:38] Now I realize today that doctrine is not a popular word. People don't, a lot of people don't like this term doctrine. I find it interesting, you find it 45 times in the New Testament. So there must be something that is important about it. But this word doctrine is one that people don't like. Doctrine simply means a teaching. It just simply means what is believed, what is said about the Bible, what message does the Bible contain. [00:21:18] Sometimes people almost boastfully say, we don't teach doctrine, we just teach Jesus. Well, that's foolish. Teaching Jesus is doctrine. And it's impossible to teach Jesus without teaching doctrine. And so, sometimes people say, I'm just going to teach Jesus. I don't want to teach anything else. I'll just teach Jesus. Well, I guess I've tried to think, how do you illustrate that? And I think the best one illustration I came up with is that I think trying to teach Jesus without teaching the entire scriptures and teaching doctrine is kind of like building a house. [00:22:04] You know, you could build a house, and you could build a house, you put up all the outside. You could put the roof on, the shingles, the siding, the windows, and seed the lawn. You could do everything outside. But you walk in the front door, and you fall down into the basement. Because there's no floors, there's no walls, nothing's finished off inside. It's just simply empty. And I believe that's what happens when we say, you know, I just teach Jesus, but I don't teach any other doctrine. [00:22:44] Because the Word of God is written by our Lord Jesus. He's inspired it. And I think we really do something very foolish when we try to make that kind of a claim or that kind of a statement. Jesus taught doctrine. Did you realize that? Matter of fact, it said when He taught doctrine, people were astonished at it. They were astonished. Found over in Matthew 22, 33. [00:23:16] Jesus said, He said, My doctrine doesn't even come from Me. It comes from the Father. Over in John 7, 16. The Apostles, over in the book of Acts, they were accused of filling Jerusalem with their doctrine. Quite an accusation against them. In verse Timothy, chapter 4, just turn back a page or so from where we're at. For 1 Timothy, chapter 4, verse 13, it says, Paul is writing here to Timothy, and he says, [00:23:52] Till I come, give attendance to reading, to exhortation, and to what? Doctrine. Teach what the Scriptures say, is what he's saying there. And then over in chapter 4 of 2 Timothy, just the next chapter from where we're at, and that is in chapter 4 verse 3, he says, for the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine. And I believe we're living in that time. [00:24:24] But after their own lust shall they heap to themselves teachers having itching ears. And here again I think that's going back to what we looked at in verse 7 of the last chapter. And that is that ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. And that is we just simply listen to those that are pleasing to us. Those that make us feel good. Those that we like to listen to. Those that don't step on our toes. You know, that's who we like to listen to. And I believe that is what he's talking about here in these last days. [00:24:58] Doctrine is very important. I'm convinced that we practice what we believe. If you see a person's practice, you can see what they believe. I don't think we can get around that. I know I've said that before, but we practice what we believe, and I think that's very important to realize that. And so the Word of God is a book of doctrine, and it's doctrine that teaches us, and so on, and it goes on and says that, and these are very closely connected together. [00:25:34] It's profitable for doctrine, for what we believe, for what is taught, it's profitable for reproof. And that idea there of reproof is rebuke. You like to be rebuked? None of us enjoy that, do we? You go over in the book of Proverbs and it talks about a number of places about how that one way you tell about a person is how they handle rebuke. That says a lot about their life. And the Word of God rebukes us. [00:26:07] I think all of us have experienced that. So it's profitable that we be rebuked and that we respond to it in the right way. It's profitable for correction. And that idea there for correction is discipline. By the way, this whole thing is kind of the way that a father teaches a child and so on. Sometimes there's rebuke involved. Sometimes there's discipline involved. Does the Bible discipline us? You ever had a guilty conscience? I have. [00:26:38] That's a pretty strong discipline that the Lord brings into our lives. And so, it's profitable for correction, and then it's profitable for instruction in righteousness. How are we to live right? The Bible is very plain about that. And we need to take the Scriptures into our life so that we can see what is right. There are so many voices clamoring all around us today telling us what's right and wrong. [00:27:12] And I believe if we get to the scriptures and read the scriptures and ask the Lord to help us to understand the scriptures, we'll have discernment of what is right and wrong. Now here's the goal in verse 12. We see the goal that is here to come to perfection. And that is that the man of God may be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works. [00:27:45] You know, the Lord gives us a command to be perfect, doesn't he? And our first reaction to that is, I can't do that. And really by ourselves we realize we can't. But he gives us the command to be perfect. We can't get around that. He gives us that command. but he also gives us the means and that is the word of God he gives that to us it wouldn't be fair if God would just tell us to be perfect and just leave it at that [00:28:15] but he gives us the means he gives us his word and then he also gives us the power and that's his Holy Spirit the power to be able to do it and I just thank the Lord for that this morning Is our goal perfection? Or do we take the attitude, well, I can't do it anyhow. No use to even try. But is our goal perfection according to the Word of God? I just want to challenge with that today that we can have that kind of goal in our life. [00:28:53] And that we can obey the Lord in that. Lord bless you. Let's stand for our closing prayer. Loving Father, we come to you this morning in the name of our Lord Jesus. And Lord, I just want to thank you, first of all, for your word. I thank you, Lord, that you have inspired men to write your word. And Lord, we can look at our Bible as a message from you. [00:29:30] Oh God, I just pray that we might be able to take your word and it can just become a real part of our lives. That we might take your word and Father, we can feed upon it and it just becomes a part of us. Lord, I pray that our goal might be that perfection that can only come through you. Work in our lives dear Lord Whatever needs there are [00:30:02] I pray that you would reprove us Lord that you would correct us That you would instruct us So that we can be what you want us to be Father Thank you We just ask now that you would dismiss us with your blessing In Jesus name we pray Amen