2 Timothy 3:14-4:5 Pastor Nathan P. Kassulke
The Fourth Sunday after Epiphany Sunday, January 30, 2022 “Our Agenda Is the Word of God”
What was Timothy going to do? That was an important question when Paul wrote him the letter we call 2 Timothy, the letter that provides us with our sermon focus for today. Paul wrote from prison. He had written from prison before, but at some points his prison-writing was really more like a house arrest situation. Not anymore. Paul was chained. He had an expectation that he wouldn’t remain chained very long, but that was not because he thought the Roman authorities were going to release him. He had an expectation that this very letter could be the last letter Paul ever had a chance to write. What would Timothy do without his mentor and helper and encourager, Christ’s Apostle Paul? What would he do in the face of false teachings and many other challenges? What would he do as he faced temptations and hardships? And as important as that question was, it’s a question that was answered many centuries ago. The reason we want to consider it is that it helps us answer another important question: what are we going to do? What are we going to do as a church? And what are we going to do as individuals living out our own lives and callings? Paul had an answer for Timothy, and it is the same answer for us. Using a word that has provided our theme for this Sunday, we could sum up the answer to these ever-important questions this way: our agenda is the Word of God. The Word of God is clearly a significant focus in this section of Scripture. The very first exhortation here, late in the last letter Paul would ever write to his “true child in the faith” Timothy (1 Timothy 1:2), was to continue in those things he had learned. In fact, Paul explains, Timothy had known the Holy Scriptures from infancy. What an incredible blessing! Timothy’s mother and his grandmother had been shining examples for Christian mothers and grandmothers to come. They had made it a point to instruct and teach Timothy from the very start in the Word of God, the Scriptures. He could look back on his life and never find a time when he wasn’t aware of God and his Word. That teaching had laid a foundation for his entire life. Maybe that’s the case for you, too. I wonder how many babies have been brought to the baptismal font that still stands in front of this church. And so many of those babies were brought because mom and dad and grandmother and grandfather wanted to raise that child in the knowledge of God’s Word. In other words, that baptism would have been followed up with instruction at church and in the home. And I know that’s not the story for everyone here, but it is for many. But even in that there’s a temptation, isn’t there? There is a temptation for us to move on to something else. In many aspects of our lives, we grow older and hopefully wiser and that means we put away things that were part of our childhood. We have moved beyond them. We certainly study different things in high school or college than we did in Kindergarten. I have yet to meet a college student whose major is “rhyming words” or “single-digit addition.” And we could very well be tempted to think that the Bible stories we learned in Sunday school are not worthy of our consideration now. We could think that Jesus was an important part of our life before, but now it’s time for a new adventure or a new outlook. Timothy could have been looking for the next steps for building a church or the self-help book for the man losing a mentor. Paul didn’t point Timothy to a self-help book. He pointed him to a book about God’s help. He didn’t point Timothy to anything new or different. His critical encouragement for Timothy was this: continue in what you have learned. Continue in the Holy Scriptures. Continue in what you have been brought up in since the very start. And here’s the reason why: Scripture is God-breathed. When we say it is God’s Word, we don’t mean that it is what somebody thinks about God or thought about God. We mean that God determined the very words that he wanted written down for the sake of his people. He breathed those words into the hearts of men he had chosen, men like the Apostle Paul himself. Paul followed in the tradition of prophets who did not say what they wanted to say, but what God wanted them to say. And all whom God chose to write his Holy Scriptures had the Holy Spirit leading and guiding the entire process so that every single word of Scripture comes to us from the very heart, the very breath, of God. Is there any surprise then that it is useful for us? Of course not. It is useful in every way. It teaches us. It rebukes us. It corrects us. It trains us in righteous living. For many it has done so as far back as our memories can stretch. For others perhaps we know the particular time when God’s Word became a part of our lives.