Living Waters of Grace 12.24.25

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.

The world makes things controversial, but it's the word

of God. It's the word of God.

And before we even go there, I just want to go to second

Timothy real quick. Chapter 3, Second Timothy

2 Timothy 3 · chapter mention

chapter 3, we're going to just look at verse.

Just going to read for verse 16. All Scripture, not some, not

parts of it. All Scripture is given by

inspiration of God and is profitable for doctrine and for

reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness.

We just talked about that. How much is all?

Well, all means all. When God says that all of His

word is good for us, He means what He says.

All of it is good for us. And yes, that does include those

long lists of genealogies with names that no one can pronounce.

Today, Pastor Lewis shares with us that God's Word is good for

even the most controversial of subjects.

He points out that what the world calls controversial is

actually clear as day in the Word of God.

That is, if we accept it just as it is written now.

Here's Pastor Lewis in the Book of First Timothy, chapter 2,

1 Timothy 2 · chapter mention

with today's edition of Living Waters of Grace.

Even Jesus himself said whoever believes shall not perish.

Whoever believes or whoever will be saved with those who believe,

all who call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

Everybody's not going to do that.

Everybody's not going to do that.

So when he says all men, you know, be saved, this is not

saying that all men, as in all men without exception, will be

saved. That's not what he's saying.

He's saying that he, he desires that all men without distinction

be saved. This is all men without

distinction. That means he doesn't care if

you're a Jew, if you're a Gentile, if you're a woman, if

you're a man, if you're black or if you're white, if you're a

Pagan, A Gentile Jew. He doesn't care about that.

All men can be said. The gospel goes out to

everybody. It goes out to everybody.

So it's not a distinction by what a person is.

Doesn't matter if it's man or woman, everyone, the gospel is

there for them to be able to believe and receive.

That's all men. And then he says and come to the

knowledge of the truth after you get saved, then we need to be

sanctified, right? We need to move on and grow in,

in God. We need to grow in God

sanctification. That means we, we're, we're

working toward being set apart for God, for the use of God.

It's our growth. It refers to the Christian

growth after being saved to become a disciple of Jesus

Christ and not to be LED astray by the false doctrines of false

teachers, the doctrine of false teachers.

We can't be LED astray by that if we are growing in Christ.

Second Peter 318. It tells us to grow in the grace

and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

So why are we doing that? Why are we doing that and how

and how and what is the means to be saved?

Well, he says that in the next line.

Look at verse 5 for this. For there is one God and one

mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus.

So what is the means for all men to be saved?

Or what is the means for men to be saved?

First of all, because of one God.

We have one God. We don't have many gods.

There's one God, one true God, one true and living God.

A lot of people like to say God, and then he, they talk about all

these things that God is not. If it's not the God of this, the

God of the Bible, then he's not a true God.

It's an idol. This is the one and true God,

the living God. And he gave us his word so that

we know who he is. He wants to be found of us when

he says seek me and and you'll find me because he wants to be

founded. But he's not hiding from us.

He's not planning hide and go seek from us.

He wants to be found of us. He wants us to know him so that

we're not LED astray. So he says, so he says here,

first of all, there is one God and one mediator.

Now, there may be some people out there that might even agree

with us and say, yeah, there's one God.

But when you say there's only one way to God, when you say

there's only one mediator between man and God, there's

only one way that you can get to that God, that's when you have

problems. People hate us for that.

People call us names for that. People ridicule what?

They slander us because of that. They call us intolerant because

of that. Narrow minded.

We're narrow minded by thinking it's only one way.

How fair is that? It's true.

There's one way, and that way is Jesus Christ the man.

And he said the man because the reason why he said the matter is

because he's truly God and he's truly man.

He's fully God and he's fully man.

But we but he's the mediator between God and man, the man

Jesus Christ, because it was the you humanity of Jesus Christ

that died for us on the cross. It was in his humanity that he

died, and in his humanity he was yet without sin.

That's why he was the accepted sacrifice.

He was a man without sin, and he's the only mediator between

God and man. There is no other.

There is no other. I don't care what argument they

try to make to try to make it seem like there's other ways to

the Father, there is none. Jesus Christ himself said it was

only one way, he said, and John 14, six, I am the way, the truth

and the life. And John 10/7 he says I am the

door. And then in Hebrews 9 and 15, he

said the Bible says he's the only mediator of the new

covenant, the only mediator of the new covenant, the man Jesus

Christ. And how is it that this mediator

works? What is the work of this

mediator? Look at what he says here in

verse. In verse 6 he says Who gave

himself a ransom for all to be testified in due time he gave

himself a ransom of all. That word is actually in the

Greek called anti lutron, anti lutron.

The word anti actually refers to the substitutionary.

It's the substitute. And of course, Lutron refers to

the fact that it is the ransom or the price of freeing a slave

anti Lutron and, and, and, and that's how he is the work.

That's the work of the mediator. The fact that he gave himself,

he died for our sins. He paid the cost of what we

could not pay. So He was the full cost to

substitute for us for sin. Galatians 313 say that it tells

us that Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law.

The law held us captive in its in its condemnation.

And no one but Jesus Christ could have paid the price to

free us from that bondage. No one but Him.

Thank God for that. Huh?

That He sent his Son to die for us?

That was costly. That was costly.

And we talked about on Wednesday night that, you know, that this

was not just, it was not a pretty crucifixion, it was a it

was a true sacrifice. A true sacrifice, just like all

the animals in the Old Testament was a sacrifice.

And how bloody those sacrifices were.

That's how bloody the cross of Jesus Christ was.

It's not the cute little pictures that we see where He

has a little blood on his around his head or a little bit of

blood on his hands. A little bit.

No, it's not that. We're talking about a brutal,

brutal sacrifice. He took on the sins of the whole

world. He paid the sins of the entire

world, of everybody. You want a reason to be

thankful? There's another one.

Think about Him on the cross and then think about the fact that

it was meant for you because we were guilty.

He wasn't even guilty. We were guilty of the sin.

Bless your name Lord in the Old Testament.

Now there were other go betweens, you know the Old

Testament, the priest in the high priest.

They were the mediators between God and man because the you

know, the children of Israel didn't want to speak to God

anymore. They were fearful.

Moses was a type of mediator or go between between God and man

are the 1st covenant, but it's only Jesus Christ and that all

all all those mediators pointed to the mediator Jesus Christ,

the true mediator, the one and only mediator.

And then we go over here to verse 7.

It says for which I was appointed A preacher.

I was appointed A preacher and an apostle.

I am speaking the truth in Christ and not lying.

A teacher of the Gentiles in faith and truth.

You know what's amazing is that Paul's now saying that I'm

qualified. I was anointed.

I was called to this ministry. And the ministry that he was

called to was what was described in the verse before.

The verse before where it says he gave himself a ransom for all

to be testified in due time. The message that we give, the

true gospel message, is the fact that Jesus Christ gave his life

for our life so that we would have salvation.

It's a simple gospel message. Jesus Christ died according to

the Scriptures, and he was buried, and on the third day he

rose again according to the Scriptures.

It's a very simple gospel, but there's power in the gospel

message. There's power, and Paul says

that I was a preacher of that message.

What does he mean a preacher? A preacher is one who heralds.

He had the authority to herald that message publicly and

proclaim the gospel message to all men.

He said I was a preacher of that, and then he said I was an

apostle. That means he was 1 cent.

He was given a special mission from God himself.

He was called and and then he says that I am speaking the

truth in Christ and not lying A teacher of the Gentiles.

Is there a difference between being a teacher and a preacher?

Absolutely a teacher, a preacher heralds the message.

He cries out the message he he he tells what the truth of the

he tells the truth. That was the message that the

message that he was sent to deliver.

Most evangelists are your preacher.

They just give the message. This is the truth.

This is the true message. But the teachers, they actually

teach us. They instruct us in the way of

righteousness. They break down the message,

they expound the message. That's a teacher.

Teach us in the way of righteousness.

Teach us in a way of holiness. Teach us in a way that's

pleasing to God. Teach the doctrine that was

given to us from the apostles. That's a teacher explains the

right way. So yes, Paul was a preacher and

he was a preacher of the Gentiles according to Acts 9 and

15 said that he was sent to the Gentiles, but he was also sent

to kings and he was also sent to the Jews as well.

So this message he was sent to for everybody and, and it was A

and it was a teach the Gentiles in faith, which again was

justification, just as if you had not sinned.

We are all justified. We're justified righteous by

God. We're decreed, we're called

righteous by God, not that we are righteous in what we do, but

we're decried. We are declared righteous by God

the Father. And that's the faith.

And then in truth, that's the sanctification he teaches.

Also, He makes disciples of men and women.

He makes disciples, and that's what we should be doing.

You see, after you are saved, then it is necessary for us to

grow and the way we grow, and that's called the process of

sanctification. We're learning the way of

righteousness. We're learning the way of

holiness. We're learning to walk more in

the spirit and less in the flesh.

We're learning that and that's how as a church body we tend to

grow closer to the Lord. And now that he's talked about

that and all this is coming through prayer.

Keep that in mind. He's all dealing, He's still

dealing with the issue of prayer there.

You know, we should pray for, for the word to get out to

everybody, We should pray. I heard one teacher say that you

know it in the church now, there's more announcements and

things of that nature than there is prayer.

And we really need to focus on prayer.

I'm glad that we have so many avenues here in this church that

offer prayer. So many, so many.

And you can all plug yourselves into it.

We invite you to plug yourselves into those avenues of prayer

because every one of those groups, whether it's a Thursday

night Zoom group or whether it's the Thursday night group that

meets here to pray about certain things, the the all of the Bible

studies that should include prayer.

I'm sure it does. When those things happen, that

is all in worship to God. It's all in worship to God.

So we pray because he died for all and his death was sufficient

for all, but it's only efficient for those who believe, for those

who believe. And then he goes to verse 8.

And as we move to verse 8, we come to see now that we're now

moving into an issue which is seen as being controversial, but

it's not really controversial. If it is rightly divided, it's

not really controversial. The world makes things

controversial, but it's the word of God.

It's the word of God. And before we even go there, I

just want to go to second Timothy real quick.

Chapter 3, Second Timothy chapter 3, we're going to just

2 Timothy 3 · chapter mention

look at verse. Just going to read for verse 16.

All Scripture, not some, not parts of it.

All Scripture is given by inspiration of God and is

profitable for doctrine and for reproof, for correction, for

instruction and righteousness. We just talked about that, that

the man of God or the woman of God may be complete, thoroughly

equipped for every good work. So what we're about to go in

here into here, this is not Paul's opinion.

This is not just Paul's opinion. All scripture is inspired by

God. It's in the Canon of Scripture.

This is coming from God. So he, she, he says here in

verse 8, I desire therefore that the men pray everywhere, lifting

up holy hands without wrath and doubting.

Let's stop there, he said. I desire, therefore, that the

men pray everywhere. Now he's talking about not just

mankind, meaning everybody. He's talking about men as in

male gender, that they pray. And Paul is saying here that men

should lead prayer in public services.

Men should lead prayer. I know growing up I didn't see a

lot of men leading prayer in public services.

It was most leading women. I just see a lot of men leading

it. But Paul says here that men

should lead prayer. We know women will pray, but

Paul's saying we want to see more men praying.

Men pray leading. And now this is not a

prohibition to say that women shouldn't pray in public.

That's not what this is saying, and we want to get to that over

in verse 9. But here he is making a point to

say that men should be praying and should be leading and

praying in public services, lifting up holy hands without

wrath and doubting. So Paul's mentioned in three,

three things that are essential. And we know with men praying in

public, three things. First of all, he says lifting up

holy hands and lifting up holy hands is actually cultural.

It's Jewish culture that the men at that particular time when

they prayed, they would pray extending their hands to heaven.

Now that gesture of extending the hands of heaven, when you

look at it, it really has a lot of different meaning or

connotations to it. First of all, it's the

connotation of surrender. It's surrender when a man lifts

his hands, when a police officer tells a suspect to come out with

your hands up, that means you are surrendering, that that

person is surrendering to the authority of that police

officer. He's surrendering.

He is putting himself into custody, willingly putting

himself into custody of that police officer.

And that's exactly what we're doing when we lift our hands to

the Lord. Back in the Old Testament, this

was a sign of surrender to God. God, I surrender, I place myself

under your authority. So the prayers that go up are

prayers to the Lord submitting to his authority.

And there's several scriptures that talk about the lifting of

the hands. Turn with me really quick to

Psalm 63 and look at verse four. He says thus I will bless you

while I live. I will lift up my hands in your

name and then go to Psalm 134 and Psalm 134 reads this way.

Lift up your hands in the sanctuary and bless the Lord.

And we know we read the story back in First Kings chapter 8

1 Kings 8 · chapter mention

and 22 that when Solomon prayed and he dedicated to temple.

He lifted up his hands to heaven and he prayed when David prayed

several times it's mentioned that he lifted up his hands to

the Lord when he prayed. So that is a, it's a cultural

position, but I just want to mention that we need to

understand the lifting of the hands.

It's an outward expression of where our hearts should be.

It's not that important what we do with our hands.

Now, God is more interested in the position of your heart when

we pray. And then he goes in and he goes

into that. So he says without wrath and

without wrath means that it's, you know, you first of all,

you're you. The hands that you're lifting up

have to be holy hands. So it's got to be pure hands,

right? Hands that we, we're not talking

about, you know, practicing sin and then coming up and lifting

your hands to pray. You know, that doesn't mean that

if you have sin that you can't pray, you repent.

And the repentance cleanses us. We confess, and that cleanses us

before God and we can lift up our hands and pray.

It's about lifting up cleansed hands.

That means the heart is cleansed from whatever sin is morally or

spiritually cleansed. But it's without wrath.

And without wrath simply means without anger.

It's without resentment. We should be praying without

resentment. I shouldn't be up here praying

and knowing I got something against that brother sitting

back there or something against a sister sitting over there.

Can't pray like that. I got to go make it right with

them first. I got to go make it right with

them and then I can pray. I don't want my prayers hindered

by having all these ungodly things in my heart towards

someone else, have an ought in my heart against a brother.

I can't pray that way, Davis said.

If I regard iniquity in my heart, he won't hear me.

God won't hear me. So we have to have pure hearts

and clean hands when we pray. And he said, and doubting,

doubting actually means that we must pray in faith.

We shouldn't be praying doubting.

James said that when you pray, you know you, you, you should be

praying without doubting. You ask without doubting.

He said he who doubts is like a wave of the sea tossed to and

fro by the wind. It it's an unstable person who

doubts. When we pray, we pray believing.

We pray believing, so we pray without doubt.

So then we go on to verse 9. And this is where things get

kind of interesting because he says here in like manner also,

and don't miss that line, in like manner also, in like manner

also, women adorn themselves in modest apparel with propriety

and moderation, not with braided hair or gold or pearls or costly

clothing. So what is he saying here?

This is actually evidence to some degree that women can pray

in public. It's fine for women to pray in

public because he said in like manner.

Also. In other words, in the same way,

when women pray, their praying should be with adorning

themselves in modest apparel. Men should pray with their

hearts, not having wickedness or anger or art in their hearts.

He emphasized that for men, not that anybody should, but that's

what he emphasized for men And but for women, he said when you

pray, if you want to, you know, when you pray, have modest

apparel. Thank you for tuning in to

Living Waters of Grace with Pastor Lewis Harrell.

We're currently in the books of First and Second Timothy.

Some of the things included in these New Testament letters from

Paul are that the young and newly established Pastor Timothy

was being encouraged to hold fast to what was true.

He was challenged to confront and address the false teachers

that were rising up. He was also reminded to accept

his calling to the ministry with gratefulness and to address the

happenings going on in the Ephesian church.

Paul was imparting his experience and knowledge to the

next generation. Timothy was receptive to

learning and gleaning what he could from Paul's wisdom.

This is how it should be in ministry across multiple

generations. Those who have lived a little

more life should be open to sharing their successes and also

things they've learned along the way.

That we're not a wind. The younger generations coming

up can learn and appreciate much from those ahead of them, and

perhaps avoid some of the same pitfalls that their mentors work

through mentoring. It's a beautiful relationship

when the hearts are in the right place to learn and grow.

We trust that you're in a community where this is

happening. Older ones providing advice and

wisdom, and each side learning and growing from one another.

This certainly was the case for Paul and Timothy as they were

comrades for the sake of the gospel.

For more information on where this teaching came from, go to

calvarychapelonline.com. There you can also learn about

our service times to join us in person.

This has been living waters of grace.