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Drive Time Devotions is a Saddleback Church podcast. We want to invite you to
one of our weekend services. Visit us online at saddleback.

com for locations and service times in your area. Please visit us this weekend.
Welcome to our final day of looking through 2 Timothy chapter 3.

We're going to focus again on what we talked about yesterday with God's Word.
God's Word is inspired, it's God breathed, and it's God breathed so that God can
be at work in our lives. I want to focus on two verses that we read yesterday,
but we didn't focus on yesterday, verses 16 and 17.

All scripture is God breathed. We focused on that, but then going on and is
useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting, and training in righteousness so that
the man of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work. Paul is writing
Timothy, his son in the faith, so he says the man of God might be thoroughly
equipped for every good work.

But obviously, if he was writing a woman, he would say the woman of God. We're
all to be equipped for the good work, the things that God wants us to do. And
God's Word is what equips us to live life in this world, to serve others in this
world, to love God and love others in the way that he wants us to.

And how does God's Word do that? There are four specific ways, teaching,
rebuking, correcting, and training. Those are the four ways that God's Word
works in my life and in your life in order that I might be equipped to live life
in this world.

And once I understand that, then I'm not confused. When I'm rebuked by God's
Word, I don't think, "What's going on here? " I realize God isn't working my
life because he wants to give me the kind of life that makes a difference in
this world.

Somebody on our research team said about these verses 16 and 17. I need to
tattoo these verses on myself. I'm not necessarily recommending that, but I hear
what they're saying.

These are incredibly important verses in God's Word. And these four words,
teaching, reproof, correction, training, those are words I need to understand.
And so I want to take some time today to talk about the meaning of these words.

When God says that he works in my life through these four ways, what's he
talking about? Let's unpack this a little bit. First, God's Word works in my
life through teaching.

This word, teaching, the aim of it is the highest possible development of the
talents of the one who's learning, the student. This word would be used in the
day of Paul of a choral instructor whose task was to train the musical chorus
for the greatest public performance, to train them to all work together in an
incredible way, to be at their very best. In the Jewish faith, the translation
of the Torah, the law into directions for the life of the individual, that was
teaching.

It was how do I do this in everyday life? If you want a single word for it, it
would be the word development. Saddleback Church is a life development church.

We want to develop the kind of life that God wants in our lives. And a picture
of that is like the development of a photographic negative. You want to bring
all the color out.

You want to bring all the richness out. That's what God wants to do in your
life. There are gifts that God has put into your life.

Through teaching, he wants to bring them out. There's character that God's put
into your life. Through teaching, he wants to bring it out.

There are passions that God has put into your life. Through teaching, he wants
to bring it out. Through the teaching of God's word, he wants to bring those
things out.

That's the power of teaching. That's how God's Word works in my life. It works
through teaching.

It also works through reproof. Reproof is convincing a person of the error of
their ways and then pointing them on the right path. It's both and.

It has the root meaning of showing someone his sin and then summoning him to
repentance. The word reproof, it doesn't just mean to blame someone. It has the
idea of revealing.

Behind this is the idea of revealing or exposing and the idea of setting someone
right. To point away from sin and to the new life that God has for us, to the
life of repentance. So in a word, I would give it the word direction, God's new
direction for life.

If I'm on a road and I'm headed the wrong way and I go into a gas station or
something, I get so lost that as a man I'm really desperate, I actually ask for
directions and I say, "How am I doing? " and the person says, "You are headed
the wrong way. " I'm not going to leave the station and say, "I didn't like that
guy.

He wasn't positive at all. " No, I'm going to accept it as a reproof. I'm going
in the wrong direction.

But then he's also going to say, "You need to go back here, make a turn here and
do this and then you'll be headed the right way. " I need to hear that. I need
to hear that for my life.

I need to hear that for the way that I parent, for the way that I think, I need
to hear that for the way that I treat other people, the kind of words that I
use. God's truth should not only show me what's wrong, it also shows me how to
get right. Reproof, it's not pointing a finger, it's pointing the way.

That's what God's word does in our lives. Now, if I'm prideful, it'll feel like
God's just pointing a finger at me. But if I'm humble, I'll realize that God's
pointing the way for me.

Teaching, reproof, and then correction. This is a wonderful word. It's got the
idea of restoration, reestablishment, reformation, the idea of correction.

It's got the idea behind it of to raise someone up again. And if I had to use a
single word for what this correction is all about, I'd use the word design. Now,
why design?

Because it's a word that's all about the kind of holiness that God wants to put
into our lives. Correction means returning to our original design. When you
correct something, that means that a mistake has happened and you want to erase
that mistake and get it back to where it belongs.

This word is full of the new life that God wants to put into your life. The
truth is, there is a fall that has happened in this world. It happened with Adam
and Eve, and we all need correction.

And there's a new life that God wants to give you because of Jesus Christ. That
is the correction, the only correction that can put us on the right path. That's
the new life.

Reproof means that the Bible points out God's direction in our lives. Correction
means that God renews us from within. One is direction, the other is
resurrection.

He wants to do a resurrection of hope and of life and of strength and of power
in you. He wants to begin to bring out who He has made you to be because of
Jesus Christ. Teaching, reproof, correction, and then training.

The idea of training is practical wisdom, training in righteousness. That's
helping someone to learn how to act in a righteous way as a part of their
everyday life, as a part of their personality. And this word training, there is
an idea behind it that most of us don't like at first.

Some versions of the Bible, this word training is translated discipline
everywhere else except for here. It has the idea of discipline behind it. And
maybe we don't like to face that, but in a word I would call this discipline.

Training is discipline. If I'm going to train to be better at some sport, it's
going to take the discipline of being in the weight room and of running the
plays. If I'm going to train to be better as someone who might sing a song very
well, I'm going to have to work and discipline myself in practice.

So I'm going to train to be better at anything in life. It's going to take
discipline. And this takes discipline.

I'm not talking about discipline in terms of punishment. I'm talking about the
discipline that's all about personal accountability. And what we're talking
about here is our growth as God's children.

Hebrews 12, 11 says, "No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful.
Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace," training
in righteousness, "for those who have been trained by it. " So these two verses
fit together.

These verses that we've just read together, they're all about God's Word working
in my life and in your life to grow us. Through development, through direction,
through design, through discipline, through teaching and reproof and correction
and training, God wants to make a difference in your life. If you want to be
involved in something that will help you to grow, be absolutely sure that it's
centered on God's Word.

All of us struggle with spending time in God's Word. If you've struggled, don't
feel guilty. You're just like a lot of other people.

So let's grow together in this one. USA Today poll I read a while back said only
1% of Americans read the Bible every day. Half of Americans read it less than
once a month, including never at all.

So a lot of us struggle with letting God's Word be a part of our lives. God's
Word can't do these things, the teaching that I need, the correction that I
need, the reproof, the training, if I don't let it become a part of my life. If
you feel guilty, I haven't let it become enough a part of my life.

You're listening to the drive time devotions right now. You've made this good
decision. Now make some other decisions and encourage people around you to make
those decisions.

Because the truth of the matter is 2 Timothy 3 16 is telling us God's Word gives
us freedom. Teaching God's Word frees us from confusion. Reproof, God's Word
frees us to admit mistakes, frees us from our pride.

Correction, God's Word frees us to see solutions, who God wants us to be. And
training, God's Word frees us to become all that God desires. Sometimes we get
off the path, even way off.

It is God's Word that will bring us back. If you're off the path right now, does
that mean that hope is lost? Absolutely not.

He wants to be at work in your life. Let His Word become a part of your life.
And you're going to see these things happen in your life.

It is God's guaranteed promise. Let's pray together. Thanks Father for your
Word.

You gave it to us. It's this incredible gift. So first we want to tell you how
much we appreciate the gift.

But then Lord we also, we ask you to help us to treat the gift in a way that
allows you to be at work in our lives. We pray that your Word would become more
a daily part of our lives. Whether it's reading a verse a day or 10 verses a day
or a chapter a day.

Let us begin to allow your Word to make its way into our hearts and lives. And
as your Word changes us, instead of pridefully giving ourselves the glory, help
us to give you the glory. Because God, it's you.

It's you working on us through your Word to us. Help us to realize how personal
that is. How intimately you want to change us.

But also help us to remember how powerful that is. God, your Word has the power
to do what nothing else can do. Change a human heart.

Thank you that you can change our hearts through your Word. In Jesus' name,
Amen. Next week we're going to look at 2 Timothy chapter 4 together.

We're going to look at Paul's last word to ascend in the faith. These are
powerful words next week about real life.