2 Timothy 3, we'll read the whole of this chapter. Our text for this morning is particularly the verses 16 and 17, although we will be drawing on other parts of God's word also. 2 Timothy 3, reading from verse 1. This know also that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, petty, high-minded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God, having a form of godliness but denying the power thereof, from such turn away. For of this sort are they which creep into houses and lead captive silly women, laden with sins, led away with diverse lusts, ever learning and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth. Now, as Jannes and Jambres withstood Moses, so do these also resist the truth, men of corrupt minds, reprobate concerning the faith. But they shall proceed no further, for their folly shall be manifest unto all men as theirs also was. But thou hast fully known my doctrine, manner of life, purpose, faith, long suffering, charity, patience, persecutions, afflictions, which came unto me at Antioch, at Iconium, at Lystra. What persecutions I endured, but out of them all the Lord delivered me. Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution, but evil men and seducers shall wax worse and worse, deceiving and being deceived. But continue thou in the things which thou hast learned and has been assured of, knowing of whom thou hast learned them, and that from a child thou hast known the Holy Scriptures, which are able to make thee wise unto salvation, through faith which is in Christ Jesus. Our text now for this morning, all scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be perfect, truly furnished unto all good works. Amen. That's why we read in God's holy and inspired word, Congregation of the Lord Jesus Christ some weeks ago, I actually preached the first in a series of sermons in which I said we were going to be looking sequentially at the doctrines of the Word of God and using the Shorter Catechism as a kind of a basis and undergirding of that and the first one that we looked at was looking at what is the chief end of man, what is the main purpose of man and we saw that it is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever. That's our purpose. That's why we exist here upon this earth. And as we live that way, in the very fashion and the way that God created us to live, then there is a fulfillment of life. There's a joy, there's a peace in living as God would have us to live. So the child of God, As we read here, that the man of God, verse 17, is the child of God, the man of God, as he led by the grace of God in his heart, that's been made spiritually alive as he sees that knows that. Then the next question that arises is, OK, but but how how do I know the way to glorify God? How do I know what is the the way that I am to enjoy him? Or if we put the question in the form of our second catechism of Westminster, then it's this. What rule has God given to direct us? How we may glorify and enjoy Him? How do we know? What has God given to us so that we can know these things? Well, the answer is, here it is, the Word of God. It's the Word of God, the Bible. the Scriptures that's contained in these writings, the Scriptures of the Old and the New Testament. That's the only rule to direct us how we may glorify and enjoy God. The Bible, in fact, is the only book that has been authored, written by God himself. Unlike every other book, and there are billions of them, every other book in the world, this is the only book that is written by, authored by God himself. It makes it unique. Only the Bible is God's word, and therefore only the Bible is the book that can actually teach us truly about God, about who he is, about what God calls us to be, and how it is that we can glorify him. We can live as God calls us to live. The Bible is God speaking. But how can we know that the Bible is indeed God's Word and that this is what the Bible is about? Well, it's no good asking man, is it? If what the Bible says is true, and what we've even been singing in the Psalms this morning as well, and that is that mankind has rebelled and gone away from God and he hates God and doesn't want to know the truth, then if you ask man about God, he's only going to tell you deception. We actually need to go to God. And the place where God has made himself known is in his word. So it's to his word that we go to find out about his word. Sounds like circular reasoning, but if you follow it through logically, then it makes sense. To go anywhere else would be go into darkness to try and find light, which would be utter foolishness. So we take up this text that we have here in 2 Timothy 3, the last two verses, and we look at a number of the texts as well. And our theme for today is profitable God-breathed scripture. Under that, we'll look at three things. First of all, that the Bible is profitable and what that means. Secondly, that only the Bible is inspired. We'll see what that means as well. Finally, the purpose of the Bible that God has given to us. Profitable, God-breathed scripture. We're told here that the scripture is profitable. Notice that all scripture is given by inspiration of God and is profitable. Something that is profitable means that this is something that can actually help us to advance, to go forward. That's really what life is about, isn't it? Have a think about that. Is not life about advancing? From the time that a little child is born, what is the parent hoping for? Is the parent hoping that this little tiny baby is going to stay a baby all its life? No. They're looking for the advancement. Is the baby growing, putting on weight? Is the baby developing, starting to see more, starting to produce sounds and noises, learning to crawl and then learning to walk, learning to speak words and then learning to speak sentences? And then what happens? The child is then sent off to school or enters into more formal learning so that the child can develop and grow and learn more and be able to do more, constantly looking at advancing. Isn't that what mankind all the time does? Isn't he constantly looking for better ways to do things, to be more profitable, to be more efficient, to be more productive? Life is about advancement. We constantly learn new things. All inventions of tools are aimed at that. And we live in the midst of time, aren't we? God has created time. and it constantly moves forward. You can't stop it. It's constantly going forward. You can't go backwards. And that's advancement. And it's heading, as we know and we've been looking at over the last couple of weeks, toward that great and glorious day of the coming of God again, the coming of Jesus Christ on the clouds of glory, when he will bring all things to its perfect end. So it's all about advancement and going forward. And that's what this word is talking about. But profitable implies more than just advance. It means a true improvement, something that is better, because not all advancements are necessarily better. How often do you hear people complaining about some product that a company's produced and it's advanced because it's got all this new tech on it and so forth, but unlike grandma's that lasted for 30 years, this breaks down after four years. It's like, is that really an improvement? Is it really better than what it was? Because here's the real mark. Despite all of man's advancements, and you think about it, like medicine, for example, and all the things that can be done in medicine are all things that can be traded. Or think about engineering and the sorts of things that mankind is doing now. Think about Like space exploration, the last 200 years, we've gone from nothing to, wow, you know, droves everywhere and satellites and you name it. You think about technology, so that we have more on our phone, far more than what the astronauts had who went to the moon. We have education, we have law, we have so many different advancements. What's the real marker? You ask anyone that's perhaps lived 70, 80 years, what was society like, say, in Australia 70, 80 years ago, compared to what it's like now? No one's saying, our society's gone. That one? Didn't have to lock your doors, but man, you know? The elderly get beaten up and so on. There are that many different sexual assaults. There's so much fraud and deceit. You get all this spam stuff arrives in your email, on your phone and so on. The world is full of deceitfulness, fraud, violence. And we kind of just expect that even our politicians are just going to lie to us. How's our society doing? Are we advancing? Are we truly advancing and improving? No, we're not. There's nothing new under the sun, says the Bible. But when the Bible here, when this text here speaks of being profitable, what it's actually talking about is genuine, real advancement of going from poor to better and growing better and greater in every way. the genuine and real improvement of the state of mankind and of individuals. But note this, the word of God, as it speaks of it here, is not some magical possession. It's not saying, you know, when it says that the scripture is profitable, it doesn't mean as long as you've got it and you put it in your hands. Great. You know, you've got Bible sitting on the back shelf. We're good. Maybe at your home you've got lots of Bibles, you know, you've got many copies and they're all sitting on the shelves and you say, great, we possess the word of God, we're going to be profiting from it. No. It's not some magical talisman, as it were, as long as you've got it, you're good. Notice what it says here. It says that the Bible is profitable for what? For doctrine, reproof, correction and instruction. All of these are activities. They're activities. These are all things that need to be done, entered into with an energy and a concentration and so on. And notice they're all about some form of teaching as well. The profit or advancement that is found through the Scripture is in the exercise and use of the Bible, of the Word of God. And so immediately the question comes to you and to me, what about you? If you would know a profit from the Word of God, that it would be profitable to you, what function does this Bible have? for you each and every day. Do you believe that food is necessary? Do you take time to make time for your meals and to prepare them and to sit down and eat them every day? I hope so. What happens if someone said to you, oh, don't worry about that, you know, maybe once a week you can have a meal, you know? Would you believe them? Not likely. Well, if this is actually meant to be an activity, then is this your most used possession? That you're in it every day, you're studying it, that your Bible is in fact very well-thumbed. Perhaps if you're the sort of person who likes highlighting and so on, is your Bible full of highlighters and written bits and notes to yourself and sticky notes or whatever else. I don't tend to do that, but lots of people do. But for whatever way in which you use it, is it used by you? every single day, because that's the only way it's going to profit you to begin with. It's profitable. If we would be profited, advanced by the Holy Scripture, it's only by taking it up and using it as God has detailed for us here. So let's dive into, OK, well, how does God say it's meant to be used? If it's talking mainly about teaching here, what's the implication? The implication is, you and me, there is so much for us to learn. And it doesn't matter where we're up to, and it doesn't matter if you're a pastor or even a professor of theology, every single one of us have got so much to learn. We still have, and we always will, because this is the Word of God and He's infinite. and there is always so much more to learn. So we're all students and we're all those who need to be profited through the Scriptures. You never graduate from the school of the Bible. You'll always be a student in that way. Notice that the Scriptures are profitable for doctrine. And doctrine is a word, not a big scary word that means really hard to understand stuff. It just means teaching. It's profitable for teaching. So we need to be taught. And the idea of the doctrine is the idea of logical teaching, one on top of the other, because the scripture is eminently logical. And so it means gathering greater and greater instruction and understanding of what it's teaching about. But it's also not just teaching, but notice then finishes with instruction in righteousness. And the idea of instruction is training or discipling. And so we need not only to learn the truth as it's outlined in the Bible, in all of its logical being set out, but then to then train in it. And that's the sort of thing that happens in any kind of training that you get in any occupation. You first of all need to learn a whole heap of facts and here's the basic understanding about this area that you're going to be in. Now, here's how we put it into practice. Here's how you actually use it. And so the Bible does that too. It says, Here's the truth and here's how you live it in your life. Here is Jesus Christ and who he is. This is what it means for how you think and how you live and how you speak and how you act and the whole attitude to life. So instruction in righteousness, notice righteousness is the idea of that being which is absolutely straight and right, not crooked and bent. Not wrong, but what is right. Instruction in this is the perfect way. What is it that is being spoken of here means that it's saying the Bible is profitable. It's what is actually going to help us make a real and genuine advancement. What is it that's taught in the Bible that you can't learn anywhere else? that you can't learn from lots and lots of other books in the world. There's actually a huge amount. But let me just touch on the highlights. First of all, it teaches us that God originally created mankind about 6,000 years ago as perfect. His whole world was perfect. There was no sin, there was no death, there was no disease, there was no pain, there was no sorrow. None. It was absolute perfection and God created Adam and Eve and put them in the garden and he walked with them and talked with them and there was perfect communion. You won't learn about that anywhere else apart from scripture. It also teaches us that at that time, mankind rebelled. He sinned. He turned his back on God and said, no, I'm going to do my own thing. I'm going to sin. I'm going to rebel against God. And when he did so, as it tells us in the New Testament, that's what brought sin and death into the world and brought upon the whole of mankind God's wrath and anger and justice. And we deserve to go into eternal punishment forever under God's good and right and just hand. You won't learn about that anywhere else apart from the Bible. But the scripture also tells us that, wonderfully, God knew all that because God is outside of time and he made a way of salvation through his own son. He always planned to send him into the world to take upon himself man's nature and to be the saviour. to actually live the righteousness that we need to be made right with God and to suffer the punishment for all of our sins so that we could be restored and reconciled to God through faith, through believing in his son. And the scripture tells us that there is God, the Holy Spirit, who is sent forth and to apply, to lay hold upon people through grace, rescue them out of sin and death and bring them into a right relationship with God again. through faith, through the truth of the Word being applied to them. All of that is the wonderful truth that is found in this book, and you won't find it anywhere else. You will find it in other books when there are godly men who are writing about what's in here, but it's not like new stuff that they came up with. It all comes out of this fountain of truth and life. But the profitableness of Scripture is also in the way. Notice not just of doctrine and instruction and righteousness, but notice the other two words in here. Profitable also for reproof and for correction. Reproof and correction. Reproof is a word that addresses what's going on in here. So it's the inside thinking and the activities of our mind and our heart. The word of God comes and challenges those things. And it points out this is wrong. That's the wrong way to think and the wrong way to approach life. And this is what's right. This is what's good. The way that God calls us to. Correction is a word that more addresses the outward actions, the practical living out in our life. And it has the idea of taking something that's completely bent out of shape and it's all twisted and to press it and shape it and so it all becomes perfectly straight and functional and useful again. And so the Word of God does both of those things. It addresses the things of the heart and the mind and the thinking and the attitudes, and it addresses how we practically live in our everyday life. Once again, the Word of God is the only book that will be able to truly do this. The law, of course, of God, It condemns us and shows our great need of Jesus Christ, of actually being saved as the beginning of being made right with God. But the whole of the word of God addresses us in all sorts of ways. And it does it in a perfect way. It doesn't just simply give us a list of things. You know, this is what's wrong and this is what's right. But it gives us a history so you can actually read the stories of very real people. And God wonderfully is using that to teach us and we see Adam and Eve. And you see Noah and you see the patriarchs, Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. You see the people of Israel in bondage in Egypt. You see them coming out, the wanderings in the wilderness, the people of Israel living in the land, the time of the judges, the time of the kings. And all of that history sets before a stop. And we look and we go, wow, that's me. That's us. And look, at the way in which they failed, and that's just like me. And God uses that in such a way that it impresses upon us. It's as fresh and real today as it ever was. Why? Because God wrote it. Knowing that he was writing it, not just for them 4,000 years ago, but he was writing it for today, in 2025. For us, right now. Are we being corrected? Are we being corrected, for example, by the letters? Here's a letter that we're reading from at the moment that was addressed to Timothy, from a senior pastor to a junior pastor, but there's all sorts of letters that are in the New Testament that are addressed to individuals and to churches to tell them about not only truth, but also to correct, to reprove, to bring back again, and guess what? We see ourselves reflected all through here too, as individuals and as church. God is speaking in a very lively and living way to us. Are we being correct? Is the Word of God every day coming to you and to me and showing us there's another thing I need to change in my thinking and my attitudes and correcting in practically the way I live my life that I may more and more enter into the life that God has purchased for me in Jesus Christ. So I may glorify and enjoy Him. But how can we be assured that Scripture is to be listened to with a confidence? Well, that's the reason why we're told here We look at that in the second place, that only the Bible is inspired. Literally, our text says here, when you see all Scripture is given by inspiration of God, literally what it says is all Scripture is God-breathed. God-breathed. And that brings to us a couple of different things. The first thing is that it tells us that this is predominantly the work of the Holy Spirit. That word spirit, when you read Holy Spirit, both in the Hebrew, in the Old Testament, and in the Greek and the New, both means breath. And so this is the breathing of God. The Holy Spirit particularly has that activity, that He is the one that takes the wonderful truth of God and breathes it out. That truth comes to its fruition in all sorts of ways. For example, he was involved in the creation, brooding on the creation and the life of God going out to produce all things. But here particularly, it's spoken of with regards to the Word. The Bible is actually the breathing out of God. What that means is that This is not that God spoke his word at various times and then listened to it, and then they said, hmm, okay, I think this is what God said and wrote it down. We'll look a little more at this in just a tick. That's not what happened. God, this scripture, the writings that are here are literally God breathed. They're all authored by God. It also means, if they're God-breathed, that they are living words. They're not just like any other man's words, which are just words, but these words are life itself. John 6, verse 68, Peter said to the Lord Jesus, when he said to the disciples, will you also go away? He said, Lord, to whom else shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. And so these words here are also words of eternal life. They're not just things that will give you a bit of a thrill for a minute or two. But they're words that are able to impart, by the work of the Spirit, life for eternity. This is the miracle of God. We have, when we have a Bible, we have the very living words of God himself. in our hands, and as the Spirit is pleased to bless through our hearts, then we have the very Word of God being breathed into us. Life itself. Do you understand why that's why it's so important to have a good translation of the Bible? The scripture, the Bible, was not originally written in English. You probably already know that, but the Bible originally, the Old Testament was written in Hebrew, and the New Testament was written in Greek. And therefore, what we say is that the Bible was inspired in those original languages in which God inspired it. And it is absolutely correct in every part of it. But of course, we don't all speak Hebrew and Greek. We can't read Hebrew and Greek. And so no matter what place you are and no matter what country you belong to, you need a translation done that's into your own language. And no translation is perfect. But the translation needs to be as good as it can be. Sadly today, we have a huge number of translations and most of those modern translations, they go according to what they call dynamic equivalence. And so the idea of dynamic equivalence is this, the translator looks at possibly original, possibly looks at an English translation, it's variable, and then he thinks about it and he goes, hmm, I think that God was trying to say this, and that's what he likes to say. What do you have then? You don't actually have the Word of God. It may be influenced by the Word of God, but it's not the Word of God. If we would have the Word of God as close as possible to And the kind of translation you need is what we call more a literal or more formal translation, because as God inspired it, every word is important and the placement of the word is important. And the grammar, as God put it down there, is important. It's all important. It's perfect. God breathes scripture. And so you need translation that follows as closely as possible the original to try to bring across what God is emphasizing and how he's saying it. It's part of the reason why we use the King James Version. It's not perfect. Far from it. It's not a perfect translation. It's not inspired or any such thing. But from what we understand, it's the closest that we have. There are other more modern translations that are not bad, like the New King James or the ESV use a more formal and literal translation, and they're worthwhile as well. But it's so important that you have a good translation. Satan knows what a miracle the Bible is. He knows it and he wants as much as possible to destroy that word. He knows that there's no other book like the Bible. How does he try to to get rid of it? You can see it right from the beginning. He actually tries to throw doubt. What did he say to Eve? Has God really said? You notice that he hates the word of God. Has God really said that? Don't listen to what God says. Today, what does he do? Well, one of the things he does is the plethora of modern translations that move more and more away from what God really says in his Word. Another way is to take up higher criticism, which is all these ideas, oh, that can't really be the Word of God. And how can we really know that that's what God originally wrote? And what about all those miracles? Well, they can't happen. We know that that just doesn't happen in the world. So that can't be real either. And not only that, look at science. Science has proved that evolution is true. And therefore, well, the first 11 chapters of Genesis, they're rubbish. You know, just more and more just to throw out the word. Satan attacks in all sorts of ways. You know, one of the best ways that Satan has? to try to convince people that it's really not that important to spend much time with the book. It's really not important to read it much. You know, what does it matter if you miss a few days, a few weeks, a few months? So you'll try to do that as well. In saying all that, When you read through the Bible, one of the things that's noticeable is you turn to different parts of it, whether it be the Psalms or the prophecies or the history, and you actually see, you can tell by reading it, and particularly when you read it out loud, you recognise it's written differently. Different men wrote that, and their characters and their personalities actually come through in the writing. Well, if that's true, then surely it's men's writings. I mean, it's not really God writing it, because wouldn't it then all sound exactly the same? No. Why not? Well, that's the reason why we read 2 Peter 1. What did Peter say there? He said this in verses 20 and 21. Knowing this first, that no prophecy, no writing of the scripture is of any private interpretation. In other words, nothing that's written in the Bible is actually because of a person's personal ideas and what they wanted. He says, The prophecy, this writing, did not come in old time by the will of man, by man wanting to write something down. He says, no, this is how the Bible came into existence. Holy men of God, in other words, men that were prepared by God, men that had all of their life so organized by God that they would be just the men of just the kind of character he wanted to write a particular book. Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Spirit. And that word move has the idea of grab the hold of, lift it up and carry it along. And so these men were laid a hold upon by the Holy Spirit and carried along in their very characters that God had meant for them to be, they have, and their personalities. And what they wrote down was exactly the word of God. Word for word, in all its grammar, in all of its placement of the words. So we can actually have, as Peter says in that passage, a more sure word of prophecy. This Bible is more sure than standing on the Mount of Transfiguration and seeing Jesus Christ in all his glory and a voice speaking from heaven, saying, this is my beloved son. We have something more sure and more definite in the word of God. What a wondrous thing. What a wondrous thing. Other religions have their books, don't they? So, the Muslims have their Koran, the Chinese, the writings of Confucius, the Indians have their Vedas. You can even say the Roman Catholics have their Apocrypha and so forth. The Mormons have the Book of Mormon and so on and so forth. But, here's the truth, the Bible is the only one that it's actually breathed by God, not authored by men. And I'd encourage you, read those other books, by all means, go and read them, have a look and compare them to what they're like, to the Bible. They're very different books. Some people say, well, you know, if you look at, you know, the Vedas or you look at the writings of Confucius, there's some truth in that. You can read parts of it and you say, what? That's true. And that is true. You will find bits of truth in there. And they say, well, therefore, you know, there's good things to be obtained from them too. Is that right? Is that right? Have a think about this. You want to go on a train journey? Okay, here you are at the station and here's the line. You've got a train line here which has perfectly soundly laid tracks that go all the way to your destination where you need to get to. Will you have a confidence to get on that train? Yeah. Okay. Sound train line goes all the way. What happens if you've got this train line that you can get on and, well, this train line's got this bit of track, you know, on this side, which is beautiful, you know. It's straight, but, I mean, this bit, well, it doesn't have a rail on that side, but surely that will be okay. And in between there's bits of it that are just boulders and no real track at all, and the end goes off a cliff. But hey, it's got a couple of rails that are really great. Do you want to get on that train? I don't think so. It only leads to destruction. That's not a good thing to be following. You want that which is fully true and goes all the way to the destination. That's what the Bible is. The Word of God is breathed out by him and therefore it's perfect, it's inerrant, it has no errors in it, it's infallible, it can never fail. It never has and it never will. Matthew 5 verse 18, till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law until all be fulfilled. This word meets us in all of our needs, in every part of our life, at every stage of our life. And what that means for us is we live in this world, in a world that's full of deceit and fraud and lies that are all around about us. We can fully trust that word. Romans 3, verse 4, let God be true, but every man a liar. He is a God of truth who cannot change. And we can live our life, therefore, according to this scripture. knowing it is right. In other words, we can make it our rule for faith and life, for what we believe and how we live our life, what we are to believe concerning God and how we are to have faith in Jesus Christ, to trust in his perfect sacrifice, to pay for our sins and make us right with God and cast ourselves upon his mercy and then have this truth to lead and give us guiding principles in life. We can trust this word. What's the purpose of the Bible? We'll finish with that briefly. I trust in what we've looked at already, you can already see the purpose of the Bible. The Bible is the only foundation for all truth. It used to be said, and I mean, theologians, good conservative theologians still say today, theology, the study of God from the Bible is the queen of sciences. If you would understand any other science, any other field of knowledge, you need to start with this. If you don't start here, you end up in all sorts of strange places. Like men spending billions of dollars in the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. What a sad waste of money. That's science gone awry. That doesn't mean that the Bible is exhaustive in its knowledge. You can't look up in the Bible and find out what enzymes are produced by your pancreas. The Bible doesn't speak to that. It doesn't contain every bit of truth. But what it speaks of, whatever it speaks of, it speaks perfect truth. Not only that, but the Bible does have everything in it. necessary for every principle concerning how we live our life. There is not any area of life that you cannot come to the Bible and find instruction and guidance for how we are to approach that and how we are to live. Jesus said, as he prayed to his heavenly father in what's called his high priestly prayer, he says of his people, Lord, sanctify them through your truth. Your word is truth. Your word is truth, and this is the word that will sanctify us. The church, therefore, we as God's people, is not only to stand in that truth and to live that truth, but we're also to declare that truth. We, this is our foundation, This is our understanding, our rule for faith and life. We're to live according and the church is also to declare it into a world that is full of darkness. We declare, hey, this is light. This is life. This is the way that we may be made right with God and have our sins forgiven and the way that communities may truly advance and profit. We're to declare that. each and every one of us. Paul says to Timothy in 1 Timothy 3 verse 15, he calls the church the house of God, which is the church of the living God, the pillar and ground of the truth. And so every one of us is to have our life declaring, this is the truth. We stand upon it, but we also hold it up and say, this is wonderful truth for all of our lives. And so our text gives us this purpose, Verse 17, that, and the word that is in order that. In order that the man of God, the child of God, be perfect, thoroughly furnished unto all good works. The word perfect and the word furnished are very, very similar. They're almost the same word. And those words really mean to be trained or to be equipped. that the man of God may be thoroughly trained and equipped. As with any business or trade, we need to be trained up, don't we? And if we're going to be God's people, glorifying Him, living as He would have us to live, we need to be trained and equipped. We need to be, by giving us that which we need to know, That's all the truth here. And we need to be trained, we need to be exercising. And God's word pulls us to that as well. And that training and equipping, of course, comes through how? The scripture being teaching us, instructing us in righteousness, reproving and correcting us and all, centered in knowing our Savior more and more, coming to a greater personal relationship with him. I wonder every day of knowing my sins are washed away and forgiven. I may write with God, God for the sake of Jesus Christ is now my heavenly father and I'm adopted into the kingdom of heaven. And all that that means, what it means to be a citizen of the kingdom and live in that way in this world, trained and equipped. It will train and equip us completely. We can be thoroughly furnished. We're to be thoroughly trained unto all good works. That's where it's going. In heaven, we're going to be made perfect in righteousness and holiness. Right now, it's the training ground. We're a long, long way, aren't we, from being thoroughly equipped and trained in all good works. But God is at work. He's faithful and he keeps drawing us out of our corruption. He's faithful. He is patient. He has long suffering. And having paid the price for us and washed us in the blood of his son, he's equipping us through the word to have us live in a way in which we believe and we live and we walk in ways that glorify God, in which we enjoy God more and more. As we love the Bible for what it is, as we treasure it, as we study, believe, practice what God is saying to us, as we speak to us, we will know of great blessing in our lives, in our church, in our families, because we will know, love, and live Jesus Christ in a very practical way. the grace of God, he will cause to shine in our lives. May it be so, more and more, for every one of us. Amen. Let's stand to pray. Our dear Heavenly Father, we thank you for the miracle of your word. So often we hold it in our hands and we do not see what a treasure that we have. We pray that we may honour it, that we may Take it up that we may indeed receive the very active blessings of that word by your spirit, applying it to us. We pray for this in and through Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.