Living Waters of Grace 01.14.26

This is Living Waters of Grace, the teaching ministry of Lewis

Harold, assistant pastor of Calvary Chapel of Westmoreland

County in Greensburg, PA. Now here's Pastor Lewis as he

continues teaching through God's Word.

Boy, don't we all need that refreshing sometime.

We need it from each other. We need it from the Holy Spirit.

We just need a refreshing. Most of us are here right now to

be refreshed, to sit under word, to have to get away from the

toils of life Monday through Saturday and deal with all those

pressures and all those turns, all the political stuff, all

that. Get away from all that and let's

just sit under the word of God and be refreshed.

Be refreshed. Isn't that why you've tuned in

to listen to Living Waters of Grace?

You find yourself smack dab in the middle of the struggles of

this life, working the 9:00 to 5:00, clawing to get those bills

paid, striving to see that child walk in obedience to the Lord.

I'll need refreshment in our souls and spirits.

You need to hear the Word of God.

Drink it in and truly experience the living waters of Grace.

And there's nothing like it. There's nothing in this world

that can compare to the refreshment that Jesus brings to

us now. Here's Pastor Lewis in the Book

of Second Timothy, chapter one with today's edition of Living

Waters of Grace. Let's pray and then we'll get

into the Word, Father God in Jesus name.

Lord, we do thank You once again that we have the privilege of

sitting under Your Word, Lord, and hearing Your Word, being

taught Your word, not by me, Lord, but by Your Spirit and

Father, I need Your spirit now. We all need a filling of Your

spirit, regardless of what is said.

Lord, how logical we may sound. You are the one who gives us the

understanding, the revelation, the illumination of Your Word

that comes from You. So Father, I pray as I give

myself away to you and make myself available for you to use

this broken vessel. I pray Father, that you would

just fill me up with Your Spirit.

Allow Your Spirit to be overflowed so that we all will

be able to receive the seed of the Word in our hearts and that

our lives will be changed by make us more like your Son,

Jesus Christ. We thank you, Lord, in Jesus

name we pray, Amen. So as we go back to chapter 1,

the end of chapter 1 and we look at verses 13, we're going to

review verse 13 again because it is significant.

It's very significant, particularly as we go forward

and what he says here, what Paul says here, and remember, this is

Paul who is facing imminent death.

I want to keep reminding us of that because this is not like

it's just two men sitting and talking who have equal, you

know, it's an equal place or in the same place.

Paul is facing imminent death and he knows that.

And the things that he is sharing with Timothy are the

things that he's receiving from the Lord that's on his heart

that Timothy will need. He's passing the mantle to

Timothy and basically saying, Timothy, I'm not going to be

here anymore. You are going to have to carry

the mantle, brother, young son. So therefore we need, I need you

to hear me. I need you to listen.

And there's some things that I need to impart in you before I

depart. So he goes in here, verse 13,

and he says, once again, we talked about it last week.

Hold fast the pattern of sound words which you have heard from

me in faith and love what you're in Christ Jesus.

So Paul is saying, it's not just the fact that you're hearing

sound words from me and you just repeat what you hear, but it's

important that you hold the form of the way that you're getting

this. Hold the form.

Don't change it, Timothy, and don't allow anyone else to

change it. Don't add to it and don't take

away from it. It's important that you hold the

pattern of the Word just the way you're getting it, just the way

you're getting it when you share the gospel.

For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son,

that whosoever shall believe on him shall not perish, but have

everlasting life. That's the gospel.

First Corinthians chapter 15, The Bible says that Christ died

1 Corinthians 15 · chapter mention

for our sins. He was buried and that he arose

again according to the Scriptures.

That's the gospel, Timothy. Don't change that and don't

allow anyone else to change it. That's coming into your

ministry. It's very important to hold fast

the form of sound doctrine. But then he goes on and he says,

do that in faith and love. We have to believe what we're

teaching. So not only do we do it

faithfully, meaning that we're holding the form of God

faithfully, where we're being reverent to it, we're being

faithful to what we've been taught.

Not only are we doing it faithfully, but our lives are

faithful to it so that the testimony in the presentation of

the testimony has the backing of the power of God working through

our lives. We cannot underestimate the

power of God working in us to establish and to make clear the

gospel and the power of God's Word when someone who knows you.

Clark talks about this all the time because, you know, there's

people, we're here, you know, we're here in Greensburg.

And I'm sure there's people who knew him when he lived in Irwin.

And Clark talks about his old hippie days and, and how the

people knew him back when he was a hippie.

So a lot of those people would probably say, wait a minute, he

is a pastor of the church him. And if you were to go back to

Stilton and Harrisburg and you would talk to people and say,

yeah, Lewis is a pastor. He's a pastor.

Are you sure, Lewis, that played here, that was here in Stilton,

that's that's a pastor. There's no way they believe it.

But it's only by the power of God who's able to change lives.

And just like he's changed your lives, every one of us have that

testimony. He's able to change lives.

So he says, look, do it in faith, but also do it in love.

When we speak, we speak the truth in love.

We speak the truth in love. This gospel is saturated with

love. It was love that took Jesus to

the cross. It was love that had the the

Father to send Jesus to die for our sins.

That's all saturated in love. It's motivated in love.

Everything Jesus did when He walked here on the earth for 3

1/2 years was motivated by love, right down to the giving of His

own life. So when we speak the word, we

should speak it in love. And this is in Christ Jesus.

And then in verse 14, it says that good thing which was

committed to you, keep by the Holy Spirit who dwells in you,

that good thing, that deposit, that treasure, that treasure

that was given to you, that was committed to you, it was

entrusted to you When someone shared the gospel with you, I

don't know if you knew it then, but know it now.

They shared a treasure with you. It's valuable, more valuable

than gold and silver. It's a treasure that you

receive, and when you meditate on that word and you study that

word, it's a treasure that's in you that now you can impart and

share with other people. It's a treasure.

And so he said that treasure, that deposit that was committed

to you, he says keep it not by your strength, Timothy.

Don't try to keep it by your strength.

Don't try to keep it by your own will, but keep it by the Holy

Spirit. The Holy Spirit, once again we

see the significance and it runs through the entire Bible when we

see the significance of the Holy Spirit.

We cannot do this Christian walk without the Holy Spirit.

And the more that we get into the study, because God is

directing us toward understanding endurance as we

move into chapter 2, but the more we move into this study,

you will see that there's no way that we can do any of this

without the grace of God through the Holy Spirit.

There's no way we can do it. No way.

So he goes on and he said, who dwells in us?

Not what dwells in US, Who dwells in US?

Holy Spirit is a person. Now this, you know, now he's

changing gears here. He's changing gears and he says

this, you know that all those in Asia have turned away from me,

among whom are 5 jealous and homogenies Now that everybody

turned away from Paul. I don't know.

You know how I mean, sometimes as men we can be a little, you

know, extreme. You know, you always do that.

You say that all the time. You know, we can be a little

extreme. Everybody turned away from me.

I don't know if everyone turned away from Paul, but I tell you

what, it's very clear that there are two men in particular that

turned away from Paul. And these are obviously these

were men who at one point were trustworthy men with him, men

who were close to him, men that he probably imparted this

treasure to. Phi Jealous and homogenies.

He pointed them out. How would you like to be one of

those people that know? Paul pointed out, and it's in

the word of God now it's in the word of God.

And everybody who will ever read this will know that you betrayed

Paul, that you betrayed Paul. But Phi Jealous and Homogenies,

among them are these two men who turned away from him.

But he's also saying, but I want to be fair.

I want to be fair to Phi Jealous into homogenies.

At that particular time, they were going through tremendous

persecution, tremendous. And if you weren't really rooted

and grounded in the faith, if the Spirit was not in you, then

it would be very, very difficult for you to be able to stay the

course because the threat of death was always with you.

The threat of death was always there.

Just being associated with Jesus Christ being in the way is what

they called it. It was the threat of that was

always there, always there. And I'm sure there were many

people, you know, who felt like, well, you know, I can't, I can't

do this. I can't do this.

I mean, my family, they want to cut off my head.

They want to, you know, kill me. They want to torture me.

They want to throw me in jail just because I'm following

Jesus. I can't do this.

I'm sure there's a lot of people who felt that way and they

turned away. And this is probably some of the

people that that Paul is talking about.

But in particular, we're probably these two men who were

close to him. They turned away, could not deal

with it. And that's part of why Paul is

going to be going into the whole endurance issue.

But he does give Timothy a good example.

He says, Timothy, don't be like these two guys, you know, who

give up and give out and turn away, you know, begin to deny

God and turn away from Jesus Christ and turn away from me.

Don't want to be associated with me because it's dangerous to be

associated with someone like Paul, you know, who the at that

particular time almost an entire state wanted to kill.

So he says don't be like them. But there is a good example that

I have here, a Niciphoris, which is really interesting because

Arnisiphoris, you know, was he was Ephesian, he was from

Ephesus family and they all believed.

They all believed his name actually means bringing prophet

or to be useful. That's his name.

That's what his name means. And he says here that Arnisor,

he said the Lord grant mercy to the household of Arnisorus, for

he refreshed me and was not ashamed of my chains.

And that's exactly what the issue was.

A lot of the other people were ashamed to be associated with

Paul. And that a shame mean

disappointed, disillusioned, like, Oh my God, I'm following

this and this may be my end, this may be what I have to deal

with, and they fall away. But this Unnisrius, he wasn't

even from the Paul's in Rome at this time.

Remember that Paul's in Rome at this time.

Unnisrius is still in Ephesus. And as the Word says here, he

came and refreshed Paul. Boy, don't we all need that

refreshing sometime. We need it from each other.

We need it from the Holy Spirit. We just need a refreshing.

Most of us are here right now on Sundays.

We come here every Sunday to be refreshed, to sit under word, to

have to get away from the toils of life Monday through Saturday

and deal with all those pressures and all those turns,

all the political stuff, all that.

Get away from all that and let's just sit under the word of God

and be refreshed. Be refreshed.

Have someone speak an encouraging word instead of

someone talking a doom word or giving me a doomsday word.

Oh, we're done. We're not.

Oh, it's not going to get any better.

This is it. Hopeless word.

But we can come on Sunday and hear an encouraging word from

the Lord. He refreshed Paul.

I don't know how he refreshed him.

I don't know if he refreshed him with clothing or refreshed him

with with food or with drink, because I'm sure he didn't have

that in abundance. So he refreshed him or did he

just refresh him by his encouragement to Paul?

Brother, hang in there man, hang in there.

There's many people that you have blessed that you have

shared the gospel with, Paul, and those people are living for

the Lord. Hang in there, Paul.

You're doing all right, brother. God is with you, Paul.

He's holding you up. I'm here because God loves you.

Isn't it awesome when you get a call from someone that you're

not expecting to get a call from?

Or you get a text or an e-mail from someone that you're not

expecting to hear from and it's right out of time when you need

it the most. Because maybe you were going

through some challenges, going through some difficulties,

having some time, struggling with your face, struggling with

your circumstances. And all of a sudden your, your

phone rings and you pick up the phone and there's someone

calling with a message to encourage you, someone sending

you an encouraging e-mail, sending you a scripture that's

encouraging you. A thought or just to say, you

know what I was thinking about you.

I was thinking about you. Sometimes we can feel really

alone and isolated in this walk with the Lord.

But when someone can call you and tell you, I was thinking

about you, that's of the Lord. That is of the Lord.

And this is what initiatives, you know, he came and he, he

refreshed Paul. He wasn't ashamed of the message

that Paul was preaching, nor was he ashamed of his chains, Verse

17 says. But when he arrived in Rome, he

sought me out very zealously and found me the Lord.

Grant to him that he find mercy from the Lord in that day.

And you know very well how many ways he refreshed me from Rome.

Now here if you have a King James Version, it'll say refresh

me at Rome, but the translation of that is actually refreshed me

from Rome. So even while Paul was in Rome

on this wrist was sending and blessing him with with help and

refreshing him and it but that wasn't enough.

He actually came and searched out Paul.

He came and he travelled and searched Paul out so that he

could be a blessing to Paul, which again within itself was

just a work of the Spirit. Because just to be associated

with Paul, come looking for Paul, that means you're letting

yourself be known that you're a Christian too.

And that wasn't the best thing back at that particular time.

So he goes on here. So now we're about to move in to

Chapter 2. And this is going to make more

sense to you covering it from where we just came from.

Because you saw an example of men who gave up, gave out,

turned away, betrayed Paul because they just could not deal

with that anymore. Maybe even begin to give in to

strange doctrine because he just couldn't deal with it anymore.

So then here with Chapter 2, it says therefore, therefore that

means based on what I said to you previously, Timothy, based

on the fact that you got these two men, Homogenies and

Fragilis, who turned away from me and betrayed me.

And also you have a good example and omnisforous.

Therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ

Jesus. Be strong in the grace that is

in Christ Jesus. So once again, Paul makes it

clear to Timothy. Timothy, I know that you've been

a little timid, sometimes a little fearful.

We talked about that earlier in Chapter 1.

He's been a little fearful, a little timid.

We also know that Timothy, his health wasn't all that great.

You know, Paul had told him a while back, look, I know your

stomach's a little, you know, a little bad.

So take some wine for your stomach.

His health is not all that great.

And then on top of that, he's young.

So Timothy really needed a lot of encouragement.

And he had a church that was right in one of the most Pagan

cities in the world in Ephesus, and he was the pastor of that

church. So he had to let Timothy know,

Timothy, you're not going to be able to lean on your own

strength, brother. So be strong in the grace that

is in Christ Jesus, be strong in the grace that is in him.

That grace is not only unmerited favor for Timothy that he would

be able to be in a place to be able to do this ministry, or

it's not just the fact that he's saved that we're all saved by

grace. It's not even just that, but to

be in the grace, to be strong in the grace that is in Christ

Jesus. That grace is also the

enablement for Timothy to be able to do all that the Lord has

called him and assigned him to do your ministries.

Whatever it is that God has given you to do your ministry,

you'll never be able to fulfill it.

If you try to depend on your own strength and your own power,

you'll never be able to do it. You're going to give out.

You're going to give out. You're going to get frustrated.

We've all done it. We've all done it.

You get frustrated. You know you have to deal with

some opposition. That can wear you out.

We have tons of pastors all the time that's giving up their

churches because they can't deal with it anymore.

And if you're trying to do this in your own strength, I don't

care what your ministry is, You will not be able to do it.

If you're dependent on your own strength, your own wisdom, your

own logic, your own knowledge. You need the grace that is in

Christ Jesus. You need to grace this in Christ

Jesus. Pray for that grace, that

enablement that gives us what we need to do the ministry.

So he's saying to Timothy and these things, verse 2 and the

things that you have heard from me among many witnesses, commit

these to faithful men. And you know what, I love that

because when you go back and really look at what Paul was

talking about, these things that you heard from me.

Well, let's look at first of all, who did Paul get it from?

Right, Who did Paul get it from? If you go to the book of

Galatians, because you see, one of the things that we have to

learn is that the source of what is given to you or what is said

to you is just as important as what is said to you.

Kids got that down already. Kids got that down.

If you have more than one kid, I guarantee you, you've heard this

before, Johnny, cut off the TV and do your homework.

Who said everybody can relate to that, right?

If you got kids, you can relate to that.

Who said it's time to come in Now it's time for The Who said

it's always who said? Because kids understand that the

authority is not in what's being said.

The authority is in who's saying it.

If it's just my brother that's saying it, I'm ignore that.

But if they tell me mom or dad said it, OK, I'll do it.

Who said? And that's exactly what we need

to understand when it comes to doctrine, when it comes to the

word of God, when we're being preached something.

Who said, who said? Look at what he says here in

Galatians. This is what he says here.

Paul is letting Timothy know, just like he's letting us know

that what Paul is giving to Timothy, he didn't just get it

from man. See, when Paul got saved, he

didn't just go right to the men and ask them to teach him the

gospel. That's not what happened.

Paul was taught the gospel directly from the revelation of

Jesus Christ himself. Look at what it says here in

Galatians chapter one, verse 11. But I make known to you,

brethren, that the gospel which was preached by me is not

according to man, verse 12 For I neither received it from man nor

was taught it, but it came through the revelation of Jesus

Christ. So Paul is saying what I'm

giving to you, Timothy. I got it from Jesus Christ.

This is legit. This is legit, this is for real.

You don't have to worry about questioning it.

So this is what I want you to share with other people.

So now we go back here to Second Timothy chapter 2 right there in

2 Timothy 2 · chapter mention

verse 2. And he says, and the things that

you heard from me among many witnesses, commit these things

to faithful men who will be able to teach others also, not just

to men. Don't just commit them to men,

but commit them to faithful men. Commit them to other men who

will handle this word faithfully and who will handle it

reverently. Other men who were faithful, men

who were seeking the Lord, faithfully seeking the Lord

themselves, Men who were sitting under the Word, Men who are

receiving and being fed the Word just as much as they're being

taught the word. This has been another

encouraging edition of Living Waters of Grace.

Pastor Lewis Harrell has shared some good reminders for us to

learn and walk in today as he's teaching through the books of

First and Second Timothy. There are useful practices and

advice that the Apostle Paul offers to Timothy in these

books. From a fellow pastor, Paul

imparts some wisdom to Timothy about solid leadership and what

some of the criteria should be for leadership.

There are specific passages directed toward men and women,

respectively. And All in all, there's much to

gain in coming to an awareness of God's heart for each person

and God's purposes for each one. We're happy that you've taken

the time today to listen and invite you to come here, the

next edition. In the meantime, when you have

some time to spare today, go check out our website,

calvarychapelonline.com. There you'll find additional

messages as well as a variety of resources and information about

how to meet with us in person. We're also on Facebook, so you

can be a part of what we share there as well.

You can stay plugged in with this ministry via YouTube to

watch previous teachings or TuneIn to our live stream.

Living Waters of Grace is a ministry of Calvary Chapel

Westmoreland. Before we go today, we ask that

you share this program with others and invite them to listen

on Grace FM at 91.7. That's all we have for today,

but we're so glad that you've been with us.

There's more to dig into here in First and Second Timothy, so

let's gear up for some more great teachings from Pastor

Lewis next time here on Living Waters of Grace.