2 Timothy 3.14-4.2
Video
Messenger dox
Call to worship:
OT:
pastor michael champoux
Psalm 119.137-144
NT:
pastor bobby owens
Colossians 1.24-28
song:
how firm a foundation
Historical reading:
pastor andrew loginow
apostles’ creed
song:
Christ is risen (come awake)
Confession & Pardon:
dr. brett eckel
song:
speak o lord
Sermon:
dr. alex loginow
2 Timothy 3.14-4.2
Introduction
Happy New Year. Anyone make any New Years resolutions? New year new you? Anyone already quit their New Years resolution?
Our culture is obsessed with new – every year there’s a new iPhone and then my old one somehow doesn’t work as well. And every January 1st everyone is going to be a new creation, behold the old is gone the new has come. The gyms are full and the produce aisles are empty. But the Christian faith isn’t about the new, but the old – the old, old story, the faith once for all delivered to the saints.
Church, we begin our 1st Sunday in the year of our Lord 2026 reminding ourselves of this truth – the one true and living God speaks to us in His Word, the Holy Scripture. The Scripture contains manifold self-attestation. Chapter 1 article 5 of the Westminster Confession of Faith (WCF) says, “[Scripture] doth abundantly evidence itself to be the Word of God.” And our Scripture passage this morning is one of the clearest pericopes of self-attestation.
Scripture makes us for salvation through faith in Jesus Christ
In verses 14-15 St. Paul encourages his young pastoral protégé, Timothy, to continue in, to remain in what he’s been taught since he was a baby. 2nd Timothy 1.5 tells us that Timothy had been taught the Scripture from his grandmother Lois and his mother Eunice. Timothy had come to believe the gospel that his grandmother and mother catechized him in from infancy. In verse 14 the ESV says firmly believed – the word is πιστόομαι; it’s a hapax legomenon, which means it occurs only once in the New Testament. It’s a Classical Greek word, which means, “to come to believe something to be true.”
I can identify with Timothy here. My parents raised me to believe the Gospel of Jesus and to love the church. I don’t know when I was converted because I have always had knowledge and assent – I came to believe since I was a baby. That’s not the case for everyone here, but shouldn’t that be our desire for our children? Dads, this is why you must lead your home in the catechism and discipline of your children. Is there anything more beautiful than raising kids who know nothing but Jesus from the time they’re born?
From childhood Timothy was acquainted with the sacred writings. St. Paul is speaking specifically of the Old Testament, but we know this applies to the New Testament, as well. The New Testament is the apostolic witness to the Lord Jesus, who is the final Word of God. Article 2 of chapter 1 of the WCF lists the 66 books of our Bible and declares them to be the inspired, written Word of God.
It is the Word of God that makes us wise for salvation. Notice that St. Paul reminds us here that the Old Testament makes us wise for salvation – all of Scripture is Christian Scripture. Every pericope in the Canon reveals salvation. In vetere Testamento latet novum, in novo vetus patet translation – the New Testament lies hidden in the Old, and the Old is revealed in the New.
And what does the Scripture reveal? Salvation! What a beautiful word salvation is – σωτηρία; where we derive the term soteriology: the doctrine of salvation. Salvation is what we need.
In Adam we have sinned against the one true and living God who is holy, holy, holy. Because God is holy, He will judge sin, so our guilt earns us eternal conscious punishment in hell. We need salvation from the holy and just wrath of God.
And the good news is that God provides salvation – while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. The Father sent His only begotten Son, 2nd person of the Holy Trinity to be conceived by the Spirit and born of the virgin. Jesus, who is truly God and truly man, lived without sin in thought, word, and deed. He died on the cross bearing the wrath of God against the sins of God’s elect and on the 3rd day he resurrected from the dead, victorious over sin and death.
And St. Paul says that we are made wise for salvation through faith in Jesus Christ. God reveals our salvation through faith. Every week we rehearse the Reformed definition of faith because we must work out our salvation in fear and trembling. Faith is knowledge, assent, and trust.
The 1st facet of faith is knowledge – we know that God is holy, we are sinners, and that the life, death, and resurrection of Christ is our salvation. The 2nd facet of faith is assent – we don’t merely know the good news of Jesus, but we also assent to the validity of this truth claim; we confess it and we do not deny it. The 3rd and final facet of faith is trust – we rest in Christ alone for the forgiveness of sin and the hope of eternal life. When God gives us faith, He also gives us repentance. Repentance means we humble ourselves, confess our sin, and turn from our sin.
Scripture is inspired and beneficial
Then in verse 16, St. Paul says, all Scripture is breathed out by God. θεόπνευστος, literally, “God-Spirited.” It’s evocative of the creation account where the Spirit hovers over the waters and God speaks all things into existence. The Reformed tradition emphasizes the co-labor of the Word and the Spirit. Again, chapter 1 article 5 of the WCF notes there are a lot of things about Scripture that witness to its inspiration:
“the testimony of the Church; the heavenliness of the matter, the efficacy of the doctrine, the majesty of the style, the consent of all the parts, the scope of the whole (which is to give all glory to God), the full discovery it makes of the only way of man’s salvation, the many other incomparable excellencies, and the entire perfection thereof, are arguments whereby it doth abundantly evidence itself to be the Word of God.”
But the contents of the Word itself are not enough to change our dead hearts. A lot of people read the Bible and don’t repent. So, the Westminster Divines go on to say:
“Yet, notwithstanding, our full persuasion and assurance of the infallible truth and divine authority thereof, is from the inward work of the Holy Spirit, bearing witness by and with the Word in our hearts.”
The Scripture is God-Spirited – the Spirit and the Word are a dual witness. The Holy Spirit inspired the prophets and the apostles to write the Word. And the Spirit uses the Word to work regeneration, faith, and repentance in the hearts of God’s elect.
The Spirit makes the Word profitable, beneficial for doctrine, reproof, correction, and training in righteousness. Doctrine means teaching or instruction – Q3 of the Westminster Shorter Catechism (WSC) says, “what do the Scriptures principally teach? A: The Scriptures principally teach what man is to believe concerning God and what duties God requires of man.”
Reproof means “to state that someone has done wrong, with the implication that there is adequate proof of such wrongdoing.” Correction means to right that wrong revealed in the reproof. And training in righteousness is teaching, catechizing, developing to grow, move forward in the correction. The word training in Greek sounds like the word child – it’s the picture of a father training his children in what is right.
St. Paul says the result of these benefits of Scripture is that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. Man of God refers to pastors, Elders. In the 1st century copies of Scripture were sparce – each church having a copy of the OT and pieces of the NT as they were written, copied, and dispersed. On top of that, many people couldn’t read so they would hear Scripture preach as the church gathered around the Word and sacraments. So, pastors, Elders, the man of God had to be equipped in the Scripture to feed the people of God and that’s still true today. Even though the original application of this was specifically to pastors, we can apply this to all of God’s people – the Scripture equips us for the good works for which God made us.
Scripture is to be preached
The original application for pastors is why St. Paul continues in chapter 4.1-2 with the command to preach the Word. The apostle’s imperative is grounded in his eschatology: I charge you in the presence of God and of Christ Jesus, who is to judge the living and the dead, and by his appearing and his kingdom. The Lord Jesus will return to judge the living and the dead. Because that’s unquestionably true, pastors, Elders, men of God must preach the Word.
Preach the word (κήρυξον τὸν λόγον). It’s fascinating that earlier in the pericope St. Paul uses a different term for Scripture (γράμμα; γραφή), but here he writes, preach the λόγος. Some will argue that St. Paul is merely trading synonyms to avoid repetition, but I’m unconvinced. We know from the opening of St. John’s Gospel that the early church spoke of Jesus as λόγος – the Word.
The pastoral exhortation to preach the Word here is not simply to preach the Bible, but to preach Christ from the Bible! Pastors must preach the good news of Jesus and call the church to faith and repentance from every pericope in Scripture. We are not to preach mere law or our philosophies, but Christ alone, Him we proclaim! The Prince of Preachers, Charles Haddon Spurgeon said, “A sermon without Christ in it is like a loaf of bread without any flour in it. No Christ in your sermon, sir? Then go home, and never preach again until you have something worth preaching.”
We must stand firm to preach Christ from the Scripture in season and out of season. When the culture is receptive to the gospel and when the culture is antithetical to the gospel. We must reprove, rebuke, and exhort. We must declare Christ, faith and repentance in Him. We must declare sin to be sin, even when the world calls it hate speech, or foolishness, or bigotry.
And we must always do so with complete patience and teaching. Pastors are not tyrants, bullies, proud, or self-righteous. We are to shepherd the flock in love. We are to patiently teach because (1) we are not a special priestly class, but we are sinners too, more like OT prophets than the modern Roman understanding of clergy. We are declaring a Christ we need, a salvation we need, a grace we need.
(2) Because the work of ministry is never complete. We patiently teach in this generation to pass the baton on to the next generation. There are some jobs, like mowing a lawn, where you can sit back and enjoy a completed job; this is not the work of pastoring – the job is never finished.
And (3) because the Lord Jesus is going to return and judge the living and the dead. Jesus calls his pastors. Pastoring is not a job you simply apply for; it’s not like any other vocation. Pastors must be specifically called by God, discerned by the Elders and the church. And the Lord Jesus will return, and pastors will answer for how they have preached, how they have led, how they have ministered, how they have stewarded Christ’s church. It is a fearful and glorious calling. God help the pastors of Christ Community Church to preach Jesus with all patience and teaching.
Conclusion
Everyone around us is locked in on “New year new you,” but, church, we must begin 2026 locked in on what’s old – the old, old story, the faith once for all delivered to the saints. The Scriptures reveal salvation through faith in Jesus. The Scriptures are the inspired Word of God. The Scriptures must be preached. The Elders of Christ Community Church commit to you that this is what we believe and this is what we will practice. Hold us to it, church, for God’s glory and for our good.