Cornerstone Mission Church, Sunday Sermon
Illustrations for two different foundations…
A vulnerable foundation… under heavy rain solid soil turns socks up rain and turns into mud… And, what you see is once a solid foundation turned into mudslide, destroying any structure built upon it.
Compares this to this picture of Tillamook Rock lighthouse built on the solid rock formation off the coast of Pacific Ocean of Oregon. Built in 1881 and deactivated in 1957, for 77 years, nicknamed, “Terrible Tilly” had withstood the enormously powerful ocean storms pounding on it without mercy… Its light was 
visible 18 miles out to sea. When it was deactivated and replaced by a red whistle buoy, Oswald Allik, the keeper penned the final entry in the logbook. After turning off the light for good, this is what he wrote in the log (displayed at the Columbia River Maritime Museum in Astoria, Oregon):
Farewell, Tillamook Rock Light Station. An era has ended. With this final entry, and not without sentiment, I return thee to the elements. You, one of the most notorious and yet fascinating of the sea-swept sentinels in the world; long the friend of the tempest-tossed mariner. Through howling gale, thick fog and driving rain your beacon has been a star of hope and your foghorn a voice of encouragement. May the elements of nature be kind to you. For 77 years you have beamed your light across desolate acres of ocean. Keepers have come and gone; men lived and died; but you were faithful to the end. May your sunset years be good years. Your purpose is now only a symbol, but the lives you have saved and the service you have rendered are worthy of the highest respect. A protector of life and property to all, may old-timers, newcomers and travelers along the way pause from the shore in memory of your humanitarian role.[i]
Paul was built to shine brightly; he was a Christian sentinel, working tirelessly against the torrents of the false teachers, persecutions from the Jews and the Gentiles alike. In the dark and demonic world oppressed with fear and drunk with selfishness, he burned brightly shinning the gospel of the radical love of Christ from Jerusalem to the very heart of Rome. Now, he had reached the end of his earthly journey and was waiting for his execution. Yet, he was not resigned or helpless in the inevitability of the impending execution; he was ready to depart, to sail beyond the horizon into the very presence of his passion, his life, his everything, Jesus Christ. Looking beyond the horizon, you see Paul determined to see his spiritual son Timothy be built to shine brightly with the gospel in the midst of all kinds of trails and persecutions.
So, we see Paul writing to Timothy in verses 11 about his first missionary journey which is chronicled in Acts 13 and 14. Paul wanted to remind Timothy how he was persecuted and suffered for the gospel and how the Lord rescued him from all. At Pisidian Antioch, Paul and Barnabas, his coworker, faced the jealous Jews who stirred up persecution against them and expelled them from the city (Acts 13:14-52); At Iconium, Paul and Barnabas fled from the Jews and the Gentiles alike who plotted to mistreat them and stone them (Acts 14:5-6); In Lystra, Paul and Barnabas were welcomed by those who thought they were gods. But, in the hands of those who opposed the gospel, he was stoned and dragged outside the city left to die. But, Acts 14:20 records how after the disciples had gathered around him, he got up… and continued on with his missionary journey. In such ways, the Lord rescued him from all persecutions; so he endured persecution and sufferings. Paul was built to shine the gospel in the harshest and darkest environments. And, he was determined to see Timothy do the same, built to shine.
If you were to be featured in ARCHITECTURAL DIGEST, what kind of buildings would accurately represent your persona?
Is this what you picture in your mind, one of the many varieties of nice homes?
The cover for ARCHITECTURAL DIGEST FOR CHRISTIANS… if there is such thing, it would prominently feature the lighthouses built on the solid foundations to shine their lights far.
The questions I want you to ask this morning are… Are you built to shine brightly? Is your way of life, your purpose in life built so that you experience persecution and sufferings? But, you endure persecution and suffering patiently and passionately without wavering in your faith in God’s ability to take care of you. These questions are designed to probe if you are living a godly life in Christ Jesus?
Paul says in verse 12, “everyone who wants to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted…” When you are built to shine brightly in darkness, you are bound to face some people who dislike you, hate you and even curse you in pain for shining brightly their eyes with the gospel light that are only accustomed to darkness.
The reason so many of us don’t experience anything near persecutions or sufferings is because we have not taken seriously our true identity as spiritual lighthouses. God is in the business of building light houses that will shine brightly in darkness. And, Paul identifies the Scripture as the bedrock of the spiritual lighthouses.
That’s the connection we see in verse 14-16…
“But as for you…” unlike those evil men and imposters going bad to worse, deceiving and being deceived,” because they ignore and reject the Scripture, as for you Timothy, “continue in what you have learned and have become convinced of, because you know those from whom you have learned it, and how from infancy you have known the holy Scriptures, which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus. All Scripture is God-breathed 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.”
When the bedrock of the Scripture teaches, informs and shapes your way of life, your purpose, when the Scripture becomes the foundation of your faith, your patience, your love, when the Scripture becomes the bedrock of your spiritual lighthouse, then you will shine even in persecutions and sufferings.
So, the key to realizing your identity as the spiritual lighthouse is how seriously you take the Scripture and build your life on it.
Your attitude towards the Scripture
So, this morning I want you to think about your attitude and understanding of the Scripture, God’s word, the Bible.
The attitude towards the Old Testament… V. 15, “the holy Scriptures [literally “the sacred writings”], which are able to make you wise for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.” Paul here is referring to the Old Testament which was taught to Timothy even from his infancy.[ii] He grew up hearing God’s word as it was “the responsibility of every father to instruct his sons in the Torah, starting at age five to six; evidently they began with Leviticus (Str-B 3:664–66).”[iii] There are some Christians who readily dismiss the Old Testament as not as important as the New Testament… but they are seriously mistaken. Without the Old Testament, you lose the big picture of God’s salvation plan. You lose the perspective about God who is God of the history, God of eternity.
Poetries, histories, laws, prophecies of the Old Testament witness to God who patiently, sovereignly, faithfully works out his salvation plan to bring up new generation of faithful out of unfaithful generations, to point the new generation of faithful to his Son, the Messiah long promised, who was prophesized to fulfill his destiny to give his life for us all. Your Bible reading should not neglect the read of the Old Testament.
The attitude towards the inspiration of all Scripture… V. 16, Paul talks about “All Scripture as God breathed.” This is one of the most important statements about the inspiration of the Bible.
- All Scripture is God-breathed means the writing of the Scripture was inspired by God, directed by God, recorded by God without disregard to personalities of the individual writing. It also means all Scripture as written in the very earliest original text are without errors. With each proceeding manuscripts, that is copies of the original, mistakes can be introduced.
- But, as for the Old Testament, when the scholars compare the newer manuscripts copied by the special groups of Jews called Masoretes and the ones found in Dead Sea which predates the newer manuscript for over 1000 years, they differ only in three words and only in spelling. Two manuscripts copied 1000 years apart, but only three words in difference? That’s remarkable.[iv]
- Consider the sheer amount of 24000 some fragments of New Testament manuscripts other than the original Greek language, 5000 manuscripts in Greek language; these are manuscripts made within first few centuries since the original writings. There is one manuscript of entire book of John that copied 150-200 years later from the original, one almost entire New Testament copied 250 years later, and two complete New Testament manuscripts copied less than 300 years.
- What does the sheer volume of manuscripts available for the New Testament and the short number of years between original and earliest surviving manuscripts? F. F. Bruce explains the significance this way: “If the great number of MMS [manuscripts] increase the number of scribal errors, it increases proportionately the means of correcting such errors, so that the margin of doubt left in the process of recovering the exact original wording is not so large as might be feared; it is in truth remarkably small.”[v]
Name
Number of years between original and earliest surviving manuscript
Number of existing manuscripts
Caesar’s Gallic Wars
900
10 good ones
Tacitus’ Annals
1,000
2
Thucydides’ History
1,300
8
History of Herodotus
1,300
8
New Testament
150-200
1 (entire book of John)
250
1 (almost entire New Testament)
Less than 300
2 (complete New Testament)
Within first few centuries
Over 5,000 Greek fragments; 24,000 in other languages
(source: http://www.irr.org/bible-reliable.html#5)
- Consider the Incredible unity of the books of the Bible (39 Old Testament books, 27 New Testament books)… imagine what kind of unity you would get if you put some of the great writings of the world by Plato, Aristotle, Josephus, Dante, Shakespeare?
- Consider the insurmountable opposition to destroy God’s word and the followers… emperors, dictators, totalitarian governments have unsuccessfully tried to destroy the Bible… burning, confiscating, imprisoning and persecuting anyone found reading it, or secretly keeping it[vi]…
The attitude towards its power to transform…
Does God’s word have the role to teach you the right way to live, does it have the right to rebuke you for the wrongs you commit, does it have the authority to correct you, train you in righteousness, in right behaviors, and does it have the ability to equip you for God’s work?
Is the word of God the foundation that which your life is built to shine?
[i] http://www.lighthousefriends.com/light.asp?ID=135
[ii] ("The holy Scriptures" is ta hiera grammata (lit., "the sacred writings"), an expression found in both Philo (Life of Moses, iii.39) and Josephus (Antiq. x.10.4) for the OT, which is what Timothy was taught as a child. (Gaebelein, Frank E. The Expositor's Bible Commentary: Volume 11. 409. Grand Rapids: Zondervan Publishing House, © 1978.)
[iii] William D. Mounce, Word Biblical Commentary : Pastoral Epistles, Word Biblical Commentary (Dallas: Word, Incorporated, 2002). 563.
[iv] http://74.125.95.132/search?q=cache:hak5FQ6EpxAJ:www.irr.org/bible-reliable.html+the+accuracy+of+the+bible+manuscripts&cd=12&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=u
[v] F.F. Bruce The New Testament Documents: Are They Reliable? 6th ed. (Grand Rapids: William B. Eerdman’s Publishing Company, 1981), 14.
[vi] Peter Williams, Opening Up 2 Timothy (Leominster: Day One Publications, 2007). 83.
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