A sermon prepped but not delivered then finally delivered

A little while ago I wrote about a sermon I had written but not delivered. Well, the week before Christmas, I was down to preach again and I went with the undelivered sermon. I have to admit that this was partially because I had no time to write a new one but I also really felt that God wanted it to be given to the congregation.

Here is the text. Whilst there were, inevitably, some ad-libs and minor changes, it is mostly accurate.

I would like to start by talking about someone I once met. Someone who has been on my mind lately. He was someone I only met once, someone whose name I cannot remember. I met him on a Sunday afternoon, way back in the 1990’s. I had not long been going to church and a group of us were invited out to a family for lunch. They had a lovely home out in the deep countryside and they had invited about a dozen of us.

Anyway, this man, and I genuinely cannot remember his name, was a recovering alcoholic. Somehow, this came up in conversation (he was very willing to share) and someone asked him how he coped when things were rough.

He did something that I will never forget, he stood up, put his Bible down on the floor and did this …

Everything he needed was in his Bible he said. He just needed to stand on its teaching and he would be fine.

Basically, this is the main point of what I want to talk about today

Read the passage and briefly outline it. 2 Timothy 3 and 4

Some of this seems difficult to understand. There is a recurring theme of persecution in the New Testament. It’s there in

Matthew 10:22, Acts 14:22, Philippians 1:29 and 1 Peter 4:12.

The church has faced persecution, is being persecuted and will continue to be persecuted. It is, getting worse.

I don’t mean the so-called ‘War on Christmas’ or the banning of prayers. I mean real persecution. Like last Sunday when a bomb was thrown into an Egyptian church killing 25 people.

This is an important theme and not one that I am playing down but neither is it one I would like to focus on today. I will save it for another day.

Instead I would like to focus on what the passage tells us about the Bible itself.

Have you ever been to a country home? I quite like it. I love looking through old houses. They look dusty and untidy and unloved at times but then you see a rope over a set of stairs. There’s a glimmer of life. Then you realise that it’s actually a home. People live here. It changes your view.

The Bible is like this. If you only pick it up occasionally it can be dry and dusty. In the past I have read the whole thing but often in small chunks, here and there. I will honestly say that it has often been dry and dusty. However, if we dig into it a bit more, read it with a bit more effort and there are signs of life.

In this passage, which I read from the NIV, Paul uses an interesting term. He says that all Scripture is ‘God-Breathed’. Other versions, particularly the KJV say inspired and we have often struggled with this word.

We talk about the Bible being the inspired word of God, what does it mean? It sometimes means ‘out of the ordinary’ as in ‘that performance was inspired’ meaning it was totally beyond your normal ways.

Or sometimes we take inspired to mean ‘dictated’ by God. As if the authors of scripture were sitting at a desk merely copying the words sent from God onto the page. Or perhaps they were under some sort of cosmic mind-control.

These don’t come close to what Paul writes. They leave no room for personality. Nobody who reads the Bible seriously could say that Isaiah, Jeremiah, David or Paul were the same authors. Their words are not the same. Jeremiah is a wonderful book but it is not the same as Ezekiel. God may have inspired these men but he was not dictating through them.

The NIV puts it beautifully. God-Breathed. There is only one other thing in the Bible that is ‘God-Breathed’ and it is us. When God made the animals of the land, the fish of the sea and the birds of the air, he gave them life and thought that it was good. When he made Adam and Eve, he breathed life into them and he saw that it was very good.

This is what Paul means when he says scripture is inspired; it is alive! The Bible (the OT in Paul’s time) was full of life and love.

Do we treat it like this?

The Bible is alive but there is more to it than that.

The Bible is not, despite what we hear constantly from secularists and atheists, a collection of myths. It is not a collection of fables. Myths and fables are excellent to read and very entertaining but they are not very useful.

Certainly not as useful as Paul tells us Scripture is. There is a long list here in verse 16 of what the bible is.

It’s useful

It’s useful for teaching.

It’s useful for rebuking.

It’s useful for training.

Reading the Bible will help us to become wise. It will teach us so much. So much about God and His plan, about the human condition, about what is the best way to live and the best way not to live. This year it has taught me so much. It has taught me that God has no favourites, he is there for everyone and, while one day it will be too late, it isn’t too late yet!

The next bit is a tough one. It is one that we don’t talk about a lot in the modern church. It is useful for rebuking. I don’t think Paul meant (or certainly not only meant) the old fashioned ‘I rebuke you in the name of the Lord because in such and such a verse God says …’ that’s not right. That’s taking scripture out of context. What I think Paul is trying to say is that when we engage with scripture, sometimes it will point something out. Perhaps it will point out that we have forgotten to forgive someone. Sometimes it will point out a sin that is part of our life. This is what it means when it says rebuke. If it happens, take it. Lear from it and you will be changed.

It has happened to me recently. Someone has been annoying me and my Bible reading has shown me gently how I need to forgive that person and pray for them. Scripture has changed me!

It is also useful for training. God has a plan for each of us, He has a role for us and he wants us to fulfil that role. This is what Scripture is for, it’s a training manual. Be prepared, if you go to the Bible ready to listen to the lessons it has, it will change you!

Something else the Bible is, is trustworthy. I have this discussion so often with non-believers. You simply cannot trust the Bible they say. It is full of errors. It is full of contradictions. I personally disagree and so do most even minded scholars. God was in control of everything that was written down and he didn’t make mistakes. It is an interesting fact that not one single piece of archaeological evidence has ever been found that contradicts a stated fact in the Bible. In fact, more and more evidence is being found to support what is said.

Please turn with me to 2 Kings 10:27

Believe it or not, in September of this year, in Israel, an old temple was discovered dating to the reign of Hezekiah. Right in the middle of it was a toilet!

If you can trust the Bible in the little things, you can certainly trust it in the big things.

The Bible should be at the centre of our faith. We should judge the values we hold in the world by it and not the other way around. Is how we treat other people Biblical? If it is, great. If it isn’t, change. Do we approach our work in a Biblical manner? We should.

A few weeks ago, the BBC broadcast a programme asking the question ‘is the Bible still relevant?’  Leaving aside the fact that they wouldn’t dare ask that question of any other Holy Book, it sums up the modern attitude to Scripture. It is old fashioned, it is irrelevant. Believe Jesus is the only way to God? That’s old fashioned. Believe in marriage? You fuddy duddy. Think God created the world? Ha! You’re an idiot!

We even have so called church leaders telling us that the Bible needs to change with the world!

In the midst of this then, Paul gives an instruction to Timothy. In v5 of chapter 4 he says ‘keep your head ’This comes in a part when Paul is guiding Timothy in what his job is. He is to correct, rebuke and encourage. He is to keep up with his duties as an evangelist.

You see, even then, Scripture had competitors. There were many different competing philosophes and, even though it was only a few years after the Resurrection, there were even competing Christianities. There were the Gnostics in particular. They saw the world divided into two, the spiritual and the physical. The Spiritual was good and the physical bad. They said that there was secret knowledge that only a few people had. They denied the real nature of Jesus.

Scripture also has competition today. The world tells us that ‘all roads lead to God’. Do no harm they say. Other religions offer a different interpretation. There are atheists and their ‘There is no God so stop worrying’ mantra. This year, as with every year, I will watch the Queen’s message. She usually mentions Jesus and shares a little of her faith. For the first time in a long time this year we have a Prime Minister who is not ashamed of her faith and yet you can almost guarantee that he official Christmas message will say ‘Christmas is a special time for people of all faiths and none’

Paul reminds Timothy that he has heard the message since he was young. If you teach children about Christianity it’s called indoctrination. If someone says that, ignore them. Helping young people to learn about Jesus is vital and no more a piece of indoctrination than telling them that 2 and 2 makes 4.

There is an interesting phrase that Paul uses in v3. He talks about sound doctrine (the sort that can only be got through good study of scripture). In all his writings, Paul mentions this 8 times. All of them in the pastoral letters!

You see, Timothy could have adapted his message. It was tempting. There is nothing worse than talking to a group of people who do not want to listen! Paul warns Timothy that there will come a time when people won’t want to listen to what he says. They will develop itchy ears that need a salve that will sooth them.

This is not what Scripture is for. If you don’t like what Scripture is telling you, sorry to say it probably isn’t scripture that has the problem!

Lots of people in the church compromise. I have heard preachers talk of how the young boy with the loaves and fishes simply inspired others to share their hidden lunches or how Moses was probably a little high on the sulphur fumes on the mountain where the bush was on fire.

All over the world people are told that the rules in the Bible don’t apply to them. You don’t have to believe all the stories; in fact you can’t really believe all of it. There are many paths to God, including through other religions, if only we are a bit more ecumenical!

We could do it. We could stand here and turn a sermon into a talk. We could give listeners platitudes instead of truths.

The thing is though, that’s heresy. People who do this with scripture forget one simple thing…

Jesus is coming back!

This month we, rightly focus on his first coming. It’s important but far too many speakers in church miss out the fact that He is coming back again! I am fully aware that some people will tell me that I’m crazy! You can’t say that. God isn’t really real. He isn’t really coming back.

Yes he is and this is the whole message of the New Testament.

This year, I have been so much more serious about my reading of scripture and I have gotten so much out of it.

I have rediscovered that the Bible is wonderful. It is beautiful. It is useful. It’s alive!

The Bible contains everything we need to know! It points the way to Jesus and he leads us into heaven.

Knowing that it is all these things and not doing anything about it is ridiculous! It is like knowing where something valuable is and ignoring it!

Yes the Bible is challenging. There are passages that make me shudder and wonder what on earth God is doing. Sometimes the Bible will take you places that you thought you wanted to avoid but maybe it is worth the challenge. This week as you read through your Bible, ask God to challenge you with something. He will do it.

I realise that this wasn’t really a ‘Christmas’ sermon. Sorry but not really sorry. If Christmas is about gifts then I for one am grateful of the gift of these 1300 pages and it’s a perfect gift for me this Christmas. I am hoping that God will use it to equip me to be what Paul told Timothy to be. Because, you can be sure, that it is a gift that the whole world needs to get better acquainted with.