Living Waters of Grace 12.19.25

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.

So he said Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners

and Paul's acknowledging and he says, and I am chief, I'm one of

the worst. And when he says that, he's not

saying while I compare myself to your sin, oh, my sins worse than

yours. That's not what he's talking

about. I've even heard that before

people comparing sins. Well, you should see what I used

to do. Paul's saying compared to God.

Would to God that we would see ourselves this way as sinners

saved by the grace of God, and also would to God that we would

see everyone else this way who has come into a saving knowledge

of faith in Jesus Christ. So often we do exactly what

Pastor Lewis said a moment ago. We compare, well, my sin isn't

as bad as his, but that's not what the point of sin is or the

fact that we are separated from God.

Yes, the point is that everyone is a Sinner and we all need

Jesus, no matter what we've done.

Now here's Pastor Lewis in the Book of First Timothy, chapter

one with today's edition of Living Waters of Grace.

We ain't getting started yet, so we're going to.

I want to thank also those who are listening behind prison

doors. I pray that the worship and the

praise today blessed you. And I pray that the Word of God

ministers to your heart today. Amen.

Well, let's get ready to get into the Word of God.

Can we please turn in our Bibles to the first chapter of First

Timothy? And this week we're going to

look at verses 12 through 21st Timothy chapter 1, verses 12

through 20. Let's pray and go into the word,

Father, God in Jesus name, just as the song said, Lord, have

your own way. Have your own way, Lord.

I pray, Father, that You speak through these scriptures to us,

Lord, that You would touch our hearts, Lord, that You would

open our eyes and show us the glorious and wonderful and

marvelous things that are in Your word.

I pray, Father, today that You reveal to us truth, because

truth is revealed and not discovered, Lord, so reveal to

us Your truth. Cause our hearts, O God, to be

made softly. So when we leave here today,

cause, us, O God, to know something more about You.

Cause us, O God, to have something more that we can pray

about giving over to You and 'cause this most of all, Lord,

to be more surrendered to you. So we ask these things in the

name of our Savior and our Lord. In Jesus name we pray, Amen.

Amen. Let's go to first Timothy

chapter one verse, verse 12. I'm going to read this and then

we're going to go back and we're going to discuss it.

It says, and I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has enabled

me because he counted me faithful, putting me into the

ministry, although I was formerly A blasphemer, A

persecutor, and an insolent man. But I obtained mercy because I

did it ignorantly in unbelief, and the grace of our Lord was

exceedingly abundant with faith and love which are in Christ

Jesus. This is a faithful saying, and

worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world

to save sinners, of whom I am chief.

However, for this reason I obtain mercy, that in me first

Jesus Christ might show all long-suffering as a pattern to

those who are going to believe on Him for everlasting life.

Now to the King, eternal, immortal, invisible to God, who

alone is wise, be honor and glory forever and ever.

Amen. This charge I commit to you, son

Timothy, according to the prophecies previously made

concerning you, that by them you may wage the good warfare, or

that you may fight the good fight, or that you may fight the

battle wells other ways that some of the other participations

may have, some of the other versions of the Bible may have.

Verse 19 says having faith and good conscience, which some,

having rejected concerning the faith, have suffered shipwreck.

Of whom are Hymenaeus and Alexander, whom I deliver to

Satan, that they may learn not to blaspheme.

Amen. Lord bless His word.

So as we go into this, the first thing that we have to do is to

think about what we talked about in verses one through 11.

So if we go back and we look at that, just a couple of things.

Now, Paul is writing this letter to Timothy, and this is one of

the three epistles, one of the three pastoral or leadership

epistles that Paul is writing to.

And the purpose of this is to give encouragement and direction

and the things for the New Testament church, the things of

the Lord for the New Testament church.

And as he's writing this, he's commanding Timothy that the

first thing you have to do is to make sure that they don't teach

any other doctrine, no other doctrine.

Don't let teachers come in, false teachers come in and

totally derail the people by teaching things that are not in

accordance with good doctrine. And then he lists a number of

different things as he talked about how this false teaching

was mainly connected to the law, the teaching of the law and how

it the law was misrepresented Senate.

And he talked about some of the sins or some of the lawless

deeds that people could commit that are listed in the law.

And and he talked about how it's not, this is not an exhausted

list, but he says, and if there's any other thing

concerning sound doctrine, then he gets to verse 11.

And this is going to be key for where we're going today.

In verse 11, he says, according to the glorious gospel of the

blessed God, which was committed to my trust.

And that's where we're going today.

Paul is now mentioning that this gospel, he's acknowledging that

this gospel, this glorious gospel, the very gospel that he

heard that changed his life, the very gospel that he heard that

he rejected, that very gospel is now committed to his trust.

And so as we go over to verse 12, from there to the end of

this chapter, we are basically going to hear Paul talk about

how amazing it is that this gospel is committed to him

because he does not deserve it. His efforts in his life was

totally to go against this gospel, but yet because of God's

grace and mercy, it is now entrusted to him.

So as we look in verse 12, we see a couple things.

He says, I thank Christ Jesus and he's very thankful.

He's very thankful. Paul spent many years going down

the wrong track. He spent many years as a

legalist, many years as a religious person persecuting and

going after people who were going the way of Jesus Christ.

He spent many years, but in God's faithfulness, when it was

right for God, he came and he delivered Paul from that.

He saved them and delivered them from that.

And Paul is grateful. Paul is grateful.

And I can understand that because I feel like I felt I

spent a majority of my life running after something that was

empty, running after something that had no eternal value.

And I thank God that he didn't leave me there.

So I'm thankful. And if we think about our own

lives, if we think about the things that we did prior to

coming to Christ, we should be thankful.

We should be thankful. So Paul says, I'm thankful.

And he's given three things that he's thankful for.

Right here in verse 12. He says #1 I'm thankful because

the Lord enabled me. So not only was Paul called to

the ministry, but the Lord enabled him.

What does that mean? That means that the Lord

strengthened him. The Lord equipped him to do the

ministry, which is the same thing He does for you.

When the Lord calls you in the ministry, He doesn't just put a

passion on your heart to go and do something in the ministry,

but as He's calling you, He's enabling you.

He's equipping you supernaturally.

He is strengthening you to be able to do the ministry so that

you can do it as unto him. So Paul says, first of all, I

thank God for enabling me. Second of all, he says that he

thank God because God counted him faithful.

Now this is not ability. This has nothing to do with his

ability. It has nothing to do with his

gifting. It has nothing to do with him

being able to go out and preach people to tears.

Has nothing to do with that. Paul says that he entrusted this

ministry to me because he counted me faithful.

That just simply means that he counted him to be trustworthy.

He accounted him to be trustworthy in the ministry.

There's a lot of things that we cannot control about the

ministry. We can't control how well we do

it. The power of God does that.

But what God is looking for, he's looking for faithful

people. He wants people who would be

faithful to the call, people who would be committed and

surrendered to Him to do what he called you to do.

That's all He'll do the rest, He'll take care of the rest.

But we need to be faithful. And it's even God that helps us

to do that. He doesn't even leave that up to

just ourselves. So he says, first of all, I'm

thankful that he counted me faithful or, or I'm thankful

that he counted me trustworthy. And then the third thing is that

he put me into the ministry. And this is really important

because there's some people who put themselves in ministry.

There's some people who put themselves in ministry.

When I was younger, I used to hear my grandmother.

They would say, she would say to me, you know, well, you know,

this person's having trouble in ministry and, you know, he's not

necessarily preaching the word. And I said, well, Mama, Mama,

why? Why?

Why, you know, would he be standing up there if if he's not

doing it right, why would he be standing up there?

She said, because some people were sent and some just went.

That has more meaning to me today than what it ever did when

I was 11 or 12 or 10. And it's so true.

Some people just go and just do whatever they think they, they

want to do. It doesn't matter what they're

called to do. They just do whatever they want

to do. And, and that's why he's saying

that he put me into the ministry.

All the ministries that we're involved in are ministries that

the Lord put you in. It doesn't matter what it is,

doesn't matter what it is. The Lord puts you there.

And if he puts you there, he puts you there for a purpose.

He has a purpose. He has a purpose and if His

purposes are fulfilled through you, we know His word does not

return unto Him void. So whatever He purposes to do,

it's going to be accomplished. It's going to be accomplished.

So he puts you there, He enabled you, and we can do all these

things through Christ Jesus. You know, you know Paul in first

Corinthians 15 and 10, Paul says I am what I am by the grace of

God, I am what I am. And then in Philippians 4 and

13, he says I can do all things through Christ who strengthens

me. So you never have to question

your qualifications or your ability to do a ministry.

You never have to question that God will empower you to do it.

He will strengthen you, enable you to do it.

If he puts you there, he will make sure that you have what you

need to do the ministry to fulfill that ministry.

So then we go on to verse 13 and he says although I was formerly

A blasphemer, A persecutor and an insolent man, Paul's now

getting into his testimony a little bit.

Paul's looking back and saying he did all this for me.

He put me into this place. He's counting me trustworthy.

He's enabling me to do this ministry.

And formerly this is the kind of person I was.

I was a blasphemer. I was a persecutor and an

insolent man. Paul's talking about his BC for

Christ's life when he when he conducted themselves in a manner

in which in which he, you know, before he conducted himself in a

manner which he does now. Paul shares about his testimony

and and he's very humble about it.

He says I was a blasphemer. A blasphemer mean that Paul

denied the deity of Jesus Christ and forced others to deny it.

He slandered them, he cursed them.

He hated those who follow Jesus Christ.

He said he was a persecutor. He was physically.

Paul used physical power to try to destroy the church.

He was violent. He tried to destroy the church

through physical means. I mean, he actually, and Jesus

said in Acts 9 and four, he said, why are you persecuting

me? Paul thought he was just

persecuting the people. Paul is persecuting Jesus

Christ. When somebody offends you or

when somebody persecutes you, you're not the only one.

He's being persecuted. They're persecuting Jesus Christ

when they don't receive you in your word.

They're not rejecting you, they're rejecting Jesus Christ.

They're rejecting Jesus Christ. So when someone says I don't

agree with you, no, it's not me you don't agree with, You don't

agree with Jesus Christ. This is his word.

I didn't write it and that's exactly what Paul is saying.

I used to persecute Jesus Christ and he said he was an insolent

man. That means he was violent.

He was a murderous man. He was arrogant, injurious.

Paul was an angry man. He was an angry man and this was

just part of who he was. I want to go over to Acts real

quick. If we can drop over to Acts

Acts 26 · chapter mention

chapter 26. Paul kind of.

He articulates, in my opinion, he articulates his testimony a

little bit more clearly over here in Acts 26.

Look at verse 9. He says, indeed, I myself

thought I must do many things contrary to the name of Jesus of

Nazareth, verse 10. This I also did in Jerusalem and

in many Saints. I shut up in prison, having

received authority from the chief priests, and when they

were put to death, I cast my vote against them.

In other words, Paul is saying that I was supporting the death

of people when they were being put to death, these Christians

who they will find in the way, and they would mandate that they

be put to death. Paul said I was one of the

people who gave my vote to put them to death.

Yeah. Yeah.

Kill them. Get rid of them.

How Can you imagine that on your conscience?

But he didn't care at that particular time.

He didn't care. Just like the sins that we used

to commit. We didn't care if it was hurting

somebody else. We were selfish.

Long as we got what we wanted out of it, that's what we really

cared about. And this is what Paul is saying.

I didn't care that I was hurting people.

I didn't care that I was tearing up families.

I didn't care. He thought he was actually doing

God's work. He thought he was actually doing

God's work. He said I voted against them and

then in verse 11 says and I punish them often in every

synagogue and compelled them. This is interesting and

compelled them to blasphemy. So not only did I blasphemy, but

I wanted to convince them or compel them to blasphemy.

I wanted to force them to renounce Jesus Christ in that

life. I wanted to convince them to do

it. And there's people like that

today, not only do they not believe, but they didn't want

other people. They try to convince other

people to not believe. They want you to denounce him.

And they do it all kind of different ways.

Mainly they do it through peer pressure.

That's one of the ways they do it.

You can't, you know, we, we just won't call him or her up to hang

with us because if they going to keep talking like that and keep

acting like that and they keep talking about that Jesus, then

we just won't hang out with them at all.

And that's one of the ways that they try to get you to denounce

Jesus Christ. But you stay strong.

You stand on that faith, You stand on that truth.

You may have to stand alone, but stand, but stand.

It may be lonely, but stand. You may feel like you missing

out on a lot of things, but stand, your reward is coming.

Your reward is coming. Amen.

And then he says, and being exceedingly enraged, that means

he was greatly he was just angry, angry.

He was enraged against them. I persecuted them even to

foreign cities. Paul's saying not I was so angry

with these people who were in the way at that particular time

that I persecuted them from one city to the next city to the

next city to the next city. I followed them to track them

down so that I can drag them out of the synagogues and bring them

before the council so they can be pronounced to death.

And just like he did with Steven and when he was just a little

kid, he stood there and the people put, you know, their

clothes because when they stoned people, they would take their

clothes off. They would put their clothes at

Stevens feet. He guarded the clothes and he

was in agreement with that Stony in agreement with it.

This is where Paul was delivered from, and this is what Paul is

saying here. He says, but I obtained mercy.

Wow. But I obtained mercy.

Think about your life, think about things you've done, and

then think about the fact that God gave mercy.

He gave you mercy and didn't even go on any further.

And he said, because I did it ignorantly and in unbelief.

And I just want to throw this out at you now in the Old

Testament, because Paul was very, very, very adapt to the

law. He knew the law very well.

So when he says this here, there's a chance, there's a good

chance that he was probably referring to the law because

back in the law in Leviticus chapter 5, it talks about the

Leviticus 5 · chapter mention

fact that if you sin unintentionally, you can be

forgiven. All you have to do is give your

give your sacrifices, the, you know, the appropriate sacrifice

for that sin and you'll be forgiven.

You'll be forgiven. It's all good.

It's all good today. We don't have to worry about

that. Jesus Christ paid the cost for

all those sins. He was the sacrifice.

But this is probably what Paul's referring to because he, he

understood the law and he knew he was talking, you know, the

people who were probably listening to the law or gone by

the law. But he said he did it ignorantly

in unbelief. And now, son, our sins were in

unbelief. We didn't believe that Jesus was

who he was. And it wasn't until that was

revealed to us that we realized that our sins were abominable or

that our sins were against him and that it was wrong.

But until then we didn't care. And then in verse 14, so he says

he obtained mercy. And then in verse 14 he says,

and the grace of our Lord was exceedingly abundant with faith

and love which are in Christ Jesus.

You know, I read that and I just think about the grace of God.

So he talked about in 13 he talked about having the mercy of

God. And then in 14 he talks about

the grace of God being exceedingly abundant on his

behalf. What we know that God is rich in

his mercy. He tells us that over in

Ephesians chapter 2, verse 4, God is rich in mercy, and thank

Ephesians 2:4

God He is because that means He had enough leftover for me

because I needed it. I needed a lot of it.

But he also tells us in Ephesians 2 and seven that it's

the riches of His glory, the riches of his grace, the riches

of his grace. In Ephesians 2 and seven, he

talks about the riches of his grace.

So he's rich and in mercy and he's rich in grace.

And all that was pulled upon Paul, all of that was poured

upon Paul. And then he goes on, and for me,

this is the thing that's most exciting.

He says it was exceedingly abundant with faith and love

which are in Christ Jesus. That's the first part of what's

exciting to me. And when you think about this, a

picture word to me, because when I think about this exceeding

abundance of grace and in his mercy, I just think about the

ocean. I think about the ocean and I

remember one time being out at the ocean and going out, being

on vacation and going out to the ocean very early in the morning.

And it was still a little dark. And as the waves were coming in,

you can see the foam of the waves and they just kept coming

and they just kept coming and they just kept coming over and

over and over again coming these waves.

And I, I sat there and I thought about, I said, that's just like

God's mercy in his grace. It just keeps coming.

It just keeps coming whenever we need it.

It's there whenever we need it. Paul said.

Let us go boldly before the throne of grace that we may

obtain mercy and find grace to help in the time of need.

Well, you'll find that grace and you'll find that mercy because

he's rich in both. We're sin abound, grace bound

even much more. We are blessed that we serve a

God that has so much more grace and mercy even than we have

sinned. It's abundant, exceeding,

abundant. And then in verse 15, the best

line in this whole Scripture, he said this is a faithful saying.

That means it's a trustworthy saying and worthy of all

acceptance. That means everyone, everyone

should accept this. It's worthy for everyone to grab

hold of this. What is that word?

This is the best news in this entire chapter, that Jesus

Christ came into the world to save sinners, to save sinners.

He didn't come to save the righteous.

He didn't come to save those whose garments have never been

soiled. He didn't come to save the

perfect. He didn't come to save the ones

who had never sinned, those who were so good, you know, oh,

that's a good person. And that's a good person.

Then God didn't come for you. God came for us who are messed

up, those who were sinful, those who blew it in the past, those

who understand our need for him. That's who God came for.

That's who Jesus Christ came for.

So he said Jesus Christ came into the world to save sinners.

And Paul's acknowledging and he says, and I am chief, I'm one of

the worst. And when he says that, he's not

saying, well, I compare myself to your sin.

Oh, my sins worse than yours. That's not what he's talking

about. I've even heard that before

people comparing sins. But you should see what I used

to do. Paul's saying compared to God.

Here on Living Waters of Grace, we're in the books of First and

Second Timothy. Pastor Lewis Harrell is walking

us through these letters written from Paul to Timothy.

Toward the end of these letters, Paul is anticipating that his

time here on earth is coming to a close.

He's giving some final words of advice to his mentee.

Paul writes in Second Timothy 4, verse seven.

I have fought the good fight. I have finished the race.

I have kept the faith. Wherever you are in your journey

of faith with God, our hope is that you have the willingness to

fight for what's true, not compromising, but holding fast

to the word of God. Paul was reminding Timothy of

this. And it's a good reminder for you

and for me today, too. For helpful input throughout

this series, why not listen to all of these teachings from

First and Second Timothy on our website?

Go to calvarychapelonline.com to access teachings, download our

app, and more. If you'd like to visit us this

weekend, we'd be delighted. Living Waters of Grace is a

ministry of Calvary Chapel Westmoreland in Greensburg, PA

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We thank you for tuning in today and ask that you come back for

more solid and biblical teaching from Pastor Lewis right here on

Living Waters of Grace.