I saw a great tweet around Easter from not only the fastest human alive, but also the fastest Christian, Usain Bolt. He posted a picture of himself crossing the finish line to a race about six feet ahead of everyone else with the simple caption, “Social Distancing #HappyEaster.”
It’s so good. I love it because of the simple confidence that is communicated. And he should be confident! He’s a highly trained Olympian who is the best at what he does.
So let me ask you this: Do you want to be the best you can be at following Jesus? What would life look like if you were able to have the simple confidence about ministry, in conversations about Jesus with non-believers and believers? What if you were confident that you were equipped for everything the Lord would want you to do?
Today, I want to explore the idea of being a “spiritual athlete” with you from the reminder that the apostle Paul wrote to the young pastor Timothy in 2 Timothy 3:16-17:
“All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.”
This is a reminder to persevere and keep using the Word. In verse 14, Paul says, “but as for you, continue in what you have learned and have firmly believed.” So we know Paul is reminding Timothy of a truth he already knows. He’s calling him to persevere.
Paul says that all Scripture... not some... not the pieces we like... not the pieces we don’t understand... but all Scripture is breathed out by God.
We absolutely need God’s Word in order to faithfully live the life that Jesus has called us to do. 2 Timothy 3:17 emphasizes that Scripture makes believers “complete” and “equipped for every good work.” We won’t be equipped without Scripture, and we won’t need instruction beyond Scripture. That is not to belittle the wisdom we can learn outside the Bible, but it gives us confidence that we’ll have everything we need from the text itself.
This teaching seems clear enough, but there are a lot of ways we may be tempted to not fully believe Paul. My problem is that I have this folder in my head called, “The Crazy Things the Bible says” folder. I drop into this folder all the crazy things that Jesus or Isaiah or Amos or David said that I don’t know what to do with and just leave it there for later. Can you relate? But that’s not what we should do. According to Paul’s instruction to Timothy, we need to pull everything out of that folder and start letting it train us.
Have you read your whole Bible? Do you know what’s in it? I don’t know every story or and every verse means, but I want to, and I’m going to train by God’s Word! It’s all breathed out by God, meaning it has some of God’s very life in it. It’s completely true, it’s authoritative, and I want more of it in my life.
So what do we do with this powerful Scripture? Paul’s list seems to say that we should...
(1) study Scripture in depth.
(2) allow Scripture to show us our sin by shining a mirror on our lives and the difference between how we are and what God says we should be.
(3) submit to Scripture’s solutions for our sins through correction and training.
So let’s train ourselves to be “spiritual athletes.” To be confident that if I open up Joel or Genesis or John and start reading, with God, and hold it up to our own lives that we can learn to be a little more like Jesus each day.