Sermon Tone Analysis

Introduction

Last week, Barbara Bush passed away at 92 years old.

I want you just to think of the changes that took place over the course of her life.

Though young, she was a witness to both the roaring twenties and the Great Depression.

She saw the troops come home victorious from World War two, and the wall come down in Berlin.

Men in space, walking on the moon, went from being the stuff of science fiction novels to inspiring speeches to reality in the course of her life.

She was born in a time in which homes dirt floors and no indoor plumbing and were normal for many Americans, as they were for my grandparents, and she leaves us in a time in which we can livestream ourselves internationally with handheld computers that are so standard that many children have them.

There is little doubt that change is happening around us, and it is happening quickly.

Things aren’t just changing technologically, are they?

Our world isn’t just in the midst of a technological revolution, but at the very same time at social revolution and a moral revolution.

Moral and social constructs that were unquestioned just a generation ago are now being brought under extreme scrutiny and in some cases upended entirely.

It’s being asked: Is gender something that is assigned physically from birth, or is there another unseen component in play?

What is a marriage, and who qualifies for a marriage, and should anyone get married at all?

And, what studies are showing is that professing Christians are becoming more and more persuaded by what they’re hearing from the word and less convinced that the ethics of historical, orthodox, Biblical Christianity are true.

Almost half of professing Christians now believe that it is okay to co-habitate prior to marriage, and over 30 percent of professing Christians under 35 see no moral issue with homosexuality.

And so, there’s a big question that comes in the midst of these changing times and this moral revolution: Is the Bible still relevant?

Does its message still apply and still matter all of these years later, or is historical, orthodox Christianity an outdated value system?

God’s Word

Read

Three Reasons for Relevancy

This morning, as we ordain and charge two men into the gospel ministry, I can think of no better text for us study and no better subject for us to tackle.

From our text, I want to give you three reasons why God’s word is entirely relevant for our generation, and in fact, ever generation.

Tony, Alan this is three reasons why the Bible will always be relevant in your ministry and will never need your help for relevancy, despite whatever pressures your may feel.

Reason 1: People Haven’t Changed.

“For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching” Second Timothy is, to the best of our knowledge, the very last written words of Paul’s life.

It could be that he died within days of writing this letter.

And, so much of what he says to Timothy is about suffering and hardship that Timothy is dealing with.

Just before we get to our verse in verse 12, he even says, “Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted.”

But, as you read, what’s extraordinary to realize is that for this young pastor much of the persecution and hardship that he would come to know wouldn’t come from outside of the church, but from within the church.

Paul is constantly calling Timothy to share in the sufferings of Jesus Christ, and the primary way that Timothy would share in the sufferings of Jesus would be to deal with the betrayal and dissension of his own disciples just as Jesus had dealt with the betrayal and denial and dissension of his disciples.

Some Want Their Passions, Not God’s Power

“having itching ears” And so, Paul warns Timothy.

Some people within the church will prefer their passions to God’s power.

Understand here, and we’re going to unpack this a little bit more in a minute, but Paul equates God’s word as being filled with God’s character and thus God’s power.

So, he’s saying some people would rather have what they want and what they love more than what God wants and what God loves.

From within the church, there will be people who want 'new truth', or what they consider more relevant truth, rather than gospel truth.

They won’t have much of a stomach for sound teaching.

They won’t have much of an appetite for that.

They will want something else.

Something more appealing.

He says that they have ‘itching ears.’

In the HCSB, it says ‘they have an itch to hear something new.’

In other words, they keep saying, “This isn’t relevant to me!

This doesn’t matter in my world!

Give me something new!

I don’t need anything else on holiness, and I don’t need anything else on prayer.

Give me fewer crosses, fewer commands, and more jokes!

Out with this old world stuff, and give me something new!”

Some Want Their Message Preached, Not God’s

“accumulate for themselves teacher to suit their own passions” And so, Paul prepares Timothy.

“They’re going to go looking for a different preacher, and it’s going to rip your heart out.

You’re going to give your life, your blood, your sweat, your tears to preparing to preach to them and to tell about Christ.

And, from within the church, there will arise people who want the pastors to work for them and not God, who will want the pastors to preach their message and not God’s.

These teachers are called by men, not by God.

They work for men, not for God.

They will please men, not God.

And, they will condemn men, not save them.”

APPLICATION: If you find yourself listening to a man who preaches the Bible and sound doctrine, and yet you want to 'accumulate for yourself a teacher of something new' and more exciting, you should quickly rebuke that impulse.

You have become susceptible to a false teacher.

From within the church, there will arise people who want the pastors to work for them and not God.

Same People, Same Problems

APPLICATION: So, here’s what I want you to see.

People really haven’t changed.

We’re looking here at the Church at Ephesus which is bringing considerable hardship into the life of their pastor because they are vain and superficial and want to be entertained rather than confronted.

Man, we haven’t even gotten outside of the church yet!

There’s a sense in which we’ve been living in the last days since the time of Paul.

It’s easy for us to look around at the transgender crisis and the marriage crisis and the new information age, and wonder: How in the world can the Bible still be relevant here?

But, these are old questions, old temptations, and old sins repackaged for a new generation.

The problem of mankind is still that we are born with a sin nature that rebels against God in all types of ways and that we see ourselves as the center of the universe, and not God.

This was the issue of sexual immorality and greed and divorce and racism in the New Testament 2000 years ago, and brothers and sisters, this is the issue with sexual immorality and greed and divorce and racism in the complex days we live in today.

And, God’s word is just as able to rightly handle them now as it was then because people are now just as they were then: in need of redemption and regeneration.

Be Surgeons with Your Bibles

You know, a couple of years ago, when I was so sick, I was just screaming out with all of these pains and symptoms that I was having.

And, I was misdiagnosed once because someone locked in on only one particular symptom.

But, there was another doctor, who focused not so much on a singular symptom, but searched for a singular source for all of the symptoms, and so he ordered a scan so that he could see what was beneath the surface.

And, he was able to help me get well by getting treating the source of all of my symptoms.

This is what the Bible does, and this is why the Bible is relevant.

The world screams at us with all of these symptoms, and it asks, “Where is this in the Bible?”

But, the Bible is the scan that allows us to see the deeper issue that will bring the ultimate healing.

Brothers and sisters, be surgeons with your Bibles!

Be surgeons in the midst of dying generation!

Tony, Alan be lead surgeons!

Reason 2: God Doesn’t Change.

“All Scripture is breathed out by God” So, as Paul is trying to steady Timothy in the midst of such an unnerving ministry, he reminds him of something: these aren’t his words, and that’s the best news in the whole world.

This is God’s word that we’re talking about.

It was God’s word breathed out that we see in Genesis that had the power to create the entire universe.

It was God’s word of God the breathed life into the dead bones found in the Valley of Dry Bones in .

It was the word of God in the Gospel of Jesus Christ that had breathed life into Timothy himself that we had just heard about in .

This isn’t some dead, lifeless, impotent word of man or word of yours.

This is the God-breathed Scriptures that we’re talking about here.

So, there’s a real sense in which Paul is saying this to Timothy: As those around you begin to clamor for something more relevant and something new, remind them about who’s word this is!

Remind them that this is the living word of the eternal God!

You see, Paul says that every, single nook and cranny of the Bible contains the very character of God.

And so, if we’re going to ask whether or not the Bible is relevant, we must ask simultaneously whether or not God himself is relevant.

Why would the eternal God give us a temporarily helpful book?

The Bible can only become outdated if God himself becomes outdated.

If God’s word contains God’s breath and is derivative of God’s character, then it must stand that it is only as relevant, trustworthy, and eternal as He is or is not.

But, praise God, in , God says, “For I the Lord do not change.”

says, “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever.”

APPLICATION: He is the eternal God filled with omniscient wisdom who wrote the ages before they were to pass!