Sermon On Man

Preach The Word: A Charge For Every Generation

Let's be honest about something before we even open our Bibles. We live in a moment when the word "truth" has become almost slippery. People use it to mean whatever they feel is true for them, whatever their community agrees on, whatever gets the most agreement in a comment section. And into that confusion, the church is still standing here on Sunday mornings, doing something that looks, from the outside, almost quaint. We are opening a book. We are reading it aloud. We are saying, this is what God says, and this matters for your life today.

That is either the most important thing happening anywhere in the world right now, or it is a waste of everybody's time.

Paul did not think it was a waste of time. And in these two passages from his second letter to Timothy, he makes the most urgent, concentrated case in all of his letters for why the preaching of Scripture is not just one option among many for the church. It is the center. It is the charge. It is the thing that must not stop.

So let's read together. Second Timothy 3, beginning at verse 14.

"But as for you, continue in what you have learned and firmly believed. You know those who taught you, and you know that from infancy you have known the sacred Scriptures, which are able to give you wisdom for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is inspired by God and is profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work."

And then chapter 4, verses 1 through 5.

"I solemnly charge you before God and Christ Jesus, who is going to judge the living and the dead, and because of his appearing and his kingdom: Preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; correct, rebuke, and encourage with great patience and careful instruction. For the time will come when people will not tolerate sound doctrine, but according to their own desires, will multiply teachers for themselves because they have an itch to have their ears tickled. They will turn away from hearing the truth and will turn aside to myths. But as for you, exercise self-control in everything, endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, fulfill your ministry."

Now notice what Paul is doing here. He is writing to a young pastor, a man he has poured his life into, and he knows his own death is close. This is not a general letter of encouragement. This is a dying man's last word to the person he trusts most with the work he has given his life to. And what does he say? Preach the word. Not manage the church well. Not grow the platform. Not build the brand. Preach the word.

That tells us something important right at the start. Paul believes that the preaching of Scripture is not a method the church uses. It is the mission the church is built around.

But before he gets to the charge in chapter 4, he builds the foundation in chapter 3. And the foundation is this: Scripture is not a human document that happens to contain some wisdom about God. It is breathed out by God himself. That word "inspired" in verse 16 is the Greek word theopneustos, which literally means God-breathed. The Scripture did not arise from human ingenuity and then get a divine stamp of approval. It originated with God. It carries his authority. It is, as Paul says, profitable for teaching, for rebuking, for correcting, for training in righteousness.

That is a remarkable list. Notice it covers the full range of what a person actually needs. Teaching is for those who do not yet know. Rebuking is for those who are going the wrong direction. Correcting is for those who have drifted and need to be set back on the path. Training in righteousness is for those who are walking with God but need to grow. In other words, Scripture meets people wherever they are. The person in this room who has never opened a Bible and the person who has read it for forty years both need it, just in different ways.

And the goal, Paul says, is that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work. That word "complete" carries the idea of being fitted out, fully furnished, ready for the task. It is the picture of a craftsman who has every tool he needs before he begins the work. Scripture is what does that equipping. Not programs. Not personality. Not the latest ministry trend. The Word of God, taught faithfully, is what shapes a person into someone who can actually live the way God calls them to live.

Now here is where it gets personal. Paul is not just talking about pastors when he says "the man of God." He is using a phrase that in the Old Testament referred to a person who stood before God and spoke for him, a prophet, a servant of the Lord. But the application is broader than the pulpit. Every believer is called to be a person of God, someone whose life is shaped by Scripture, someone who is being equipped by it week after week. The preaching of the Word is not a performance for the congregation. It is the means by which God does his equipping work in all of us together.

That is why Paul's charge in chapter 4 is so weighty. He does not just say, Timothy, try to preach when you can. He says, I solemnly charge you before God and Christ Jesus. He invokes the coming judgment. He invokes the appearing of the King. He is saying, this is not optional, this is not casual, this is a sacred trust given to you by the God who will one day call you to account for how you handled it.

Preach the word. Be ready in season and out of season.

That phrase "in season and out of season" is worth sitting with. It means when it is convenient and when it is not. When people are receptive and when they are not. When the cultural moment seems favorable to Christian truth and when it does not. Paul is not giving Timothy permission to wait for better conditions. He is telling him that the conditions will never be perfect, and the preaching must happen anyway.

And then Paul does something that sounds almost prophetic, because it describes our own moment so clearly. He says the time will come when people will not tolerate sound doctrine. They will accumulate teachers who tell them what they want to hear. They will turn from truth and turn to myths.

We do not have to look very hard to see that dynamic at work today. It is not just in the culture. It can creep into the church. When preaching becomes primarily about making people feel good, when difficult passages get quietly skipped, when the parts of Scripture that challenge our preferences get smoothed over, we are not serving people. We are actually leaving them unequipped. We are sending them into the week without the tools they need.

Paul's answer to that drift is not to be harsh or combative. Look at what he says: correct, rebuke, and encourage with great patience and careful instruction. There is a pastoral gentleness built right into the charge. The goal is never to win an argument with the congregation. The goal is to serve them. To love them enough to tell them the truth. To trust that the God-breathed Word, handled carefully and proclaimed faithfully, will do what God says it will do.

Now here is the center of everything, and we should not miss it. Paul tells Timothy in chapter 3 that the Scriptures are able to give wisdom for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. That phrase is the key to the whole passage. The Scriptures are not primarily a moral guidebook. They are not primarily a collection of wisdom literature. They are a witness to Jesus Christ. They exist to bring people to saving faith in him. Every sermon that faithfully handles the Word of God is, in some way, pointing toward the one the whole Bible is about.

That is why the preaching of the Word is not just an educational exercise. It is a means of grace. When Scripture is proclaimed faithfully, Christ is made known. And when Christ is made known, people are saved, sanctified, and shaped into his image. That is the whole point. That is why Paul makes this charge with such gravity. The stakes are not small. Eternity is in the room every time the Word is opened.

So what does this mean for us, sitting here today? A few things worth carrying into the week.

First, receive the Word as what it actually is. Paul told the Thessalonians that they received the message not as the word of men but as what it truly is, the Word of God. That posture matters. We do not come to Scripture to evaluate it. We come to be evaluated by it, shaped by it, equipped by it.

Second, trust the process even when it is slow. Being equipped for every good work is not something that happens in a single sermon. It is the work of a lifetime of sitting under faithful teaching, reading, praying, and letting the Word do its work. There are no shortcuts, and that is not a discouraging thing. It is actually a freeing thing. You do not have to arrive fully formed. You just have to keep coming back to the Word.

Third, if you are here today and you have never trusted Christ as Savior, this is what the whole thing is pointing toward. The Scriptures exist to give you wisdom for salvation through faith in him. Not through your own effort, not through your own goodness, but through faith in Jesus Christ, who lived the life you could not live, died the death you deserved, and rose from the dead so that everyone who trusts in him will not perish but have eternal life. That is the message at the center of every faithful sermon. And it is available to you today.

The Word of God will not return empty. It accomplishes what God intends. That is not our confidence in ourselves. That is our confidence in him. So we keep opening the Book. We keep proclaiming what it says. And we trust the God who breathed it to do what only he can do.

Sources Consulted

The Holy Bible, Christian Standard Bible. Nashville: Holman Bible Publishers, 2017.

Thomas D. Lea and Hayne P. Griffin Jr. 1, 2 Timothy, Titus. New American Commentary, vol. 34. Nashville: Broadman Press, 1992.

William D. Mounce. Pastoral Epistles. Word Biblical Commentary, vol. 46. Nashville: Thomas Nelson, 2000.

John Stott. The Message of 2 Timothy: Guard the Gospel. The Bible Speaks Today. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1973.

George W. Knight III. The Pastoral Epistles: A Commentary on the Greek Text. New International Greek Testament Commentary. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1992.