Sinclair B. Ferguson

It isn't a matter of just trying to do the right thing, trying to be this or trying to be that.

It's much more organic.

It's this ninefold fruit of the Spirit, which the Spirit produces in us.

as we grow in our love for the Lord Jesus, as our hearts and minds and our wills submit to Scripture, as our affections are suffused with the teaching of Scripture and the knowledge of the Lord Jesus, then there is a kind of spiritual natural way in which we grow to be more like Him.

Right at the end of yesterday's podcast, I said that the Word of God isn't inert and powerless.

Paul actually says it is at work in you believers.

And if you've been a Christian for some time, you'll probably be familiar with the Old Testament version of that statement.

when God says that the word that goes out of his mouth will not return to him empty, but it shall accomplish that which he purposes and shall succeed in the thing for which he sent it.

That's Isaiah chapter 55 and verse 11, and if you're not familiar with it, it's a verse worth memorizing.

But when the Word of God works, what does it accomplish?

That question brings Paul's important words to Timothy to mind, I think, doesn't it?

I mean, what he says in 2 Timothy 3, 16 and 17 about the Scriptures being breathed out by God and profitable.

The Greek word he uses there means useful, profitable in that sense.

Paul uses it very rarely, but interestingly always in the pastoral letters, the letters he wrote to the pastors Timothy and Titus.

And here he's telling Timothy, and through Timothy ourselves, something very important.

If something has a specific use, then we need to understand what that use is.

So what's the Word of God for?

What's it useful for?

What does it accomplish?

Well, Paul says several things, doctrine or teaching, reproof or convicting us of our faults, correction, and then for child training and righteousness.