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.
But there are other decisions that we have to make for Jesus
Christ rather be on our jobs, in our communities or even in our
families. When we have to make the
decision that we will not denounce, we will not deny, we
will not turn from Jesus Christ, we will not disown it.
And that's exactly what this means when he says if we deny
Him, it means if we disown him, we disown Him before men, He
would disown us before the Father.
There's a lot of pressure in our world today to deny the name of
Jesus. It's become a bit taboo to say
that you follow Jesus. It's perfectly OK to be
spiritual. But to say that Jesus is your
king? That can bring on the ire of the
masses. Pastor Lewis shares today that
we need to be ready to stand for Jesus no matter what the world
tells us. But what if it's a friend or
family member who's pressuring you to take it easy about your
faith in Jesus? It doesn't matter.
Jesus died for you. You are called to stand for him.
Now. Here's Pastor Lewis in the Book
of Second Timothy, Chapter 2, with today's edition of Living
Waters of Grace. Paul was looking at imminent
execution. He was looking to be executed.
So he was giving his son in the faith, Timothy, last words,
important words that would help him to carry the mantle, to do
the job that he had began to do, to carry the mantle, that he
would be the pastor of this church in Ephesus, but that even
more than that, he would be the man of God that God was calling
him to be. And in doing so, Paul thought it
was necessary to impart to him instruction just as he is
imparting it to us as well, to help us to live a life that's
pleasing to God. So when we start here in verse
11, the first thing we read is this is a faithful saying or
this is a trustworthy saying. You can believe this, you can
live by this. This is something that you can
take with you, Timothy. And he goes on to once again
emphasize the promise of life, which is in the gospel that Paul
was emphasizing at the very beginning of this journey.
And he says here, for if we died with him, we shall also live
with him. Now that's especially important
to Paul because he's facing death.
So as he sits in this prison and he's thinking about these things
and he's thinking about the promise that he has in Christ
Jesus that if we die with him, that we will also live with him.
Paul's encouraging himself as well as he's encouraging
Timothy. And that's exactly what the word
of God does. When we read the Word of God or
we study the word of God, it encourages us.
And when we share the word of God with other people, it
encourages them. But even in our encouraging with
other people and sharing the word with other people, we also
encourage ourselves, which is why it's so important to
continue to talk about the things of God, because we
encourage not only other people, we encourage ourselves as we do
that. So he said if we die together,
we also live together. In Romans 6 and 8, the Bible
says now if we die with Christ, we believe that we shall also
live with him. And I'm sure Paul is, is
thinking about these kind of things now.
And when we think about the dying, obviously, you know,
Jesus tells us that we are to, you know, deny ourselves that we
are to pick up our cross and we're to follow him.
So we do give ourselves away. We die to ourselves when we get
saved, when we trust Jesus Christ for our salvation.
We do die to ourselves. We die to our old life.
We die to our old way of being, our old way of thinking, our old
way of speaking, the things that we used to do.
We die to those things. We die to those old sins.
And it's almost symbolic because there's two sacraments that we
have. The one obviously is baptism and
the other one is the one that we do every Sunday when we take the
Holy Table. But in the sacrament of Baptism,
it is a symbol of what has happened on the inside of us.
So when he talks about baptism, as he goes down, as we go down
into the watery grave, that symbolizes Christ going into the
grave upon his death. But when he we raise up out of
there, we that symbolizes Jesus Christ raising up into
resurrection of new life. And that's us.
We, we rise with Jesus Christ in new life, we die with him and we
live with Jesus Christ. Galatians 2 and 20 says I have
been crucified with Christ. Nevertheless, I live not I, but
Christ lives in me, in the life which I now live in the flesh.
I live it by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave
himself for me. We also understand that in 2nd
Corinthians 5 and 17 says if anyone is in Christ, he is a new
creation. Old things have passed away,
they've died, they've died. Old things have passed away.
That old me, they passed away and behold, all things have
become new and we are all new in Christ Jesus and we're grateful
for that. So he says if you die with him,
we should also live with him. So basically he's telling Tim,
Timothy, don't be afraid of the persecutions.
We know that Nero is taking people out.
People are dying for the faith. And he's basically encouraging
Timothy to say, this could happen to you, Timothy, there's
no question about it, it could happen to you.
But be encouraged because if we die with him, we shall also live
with Him. Amen.
So then we go to verse 12 and he says if we endure, we shall also
reign with Him. If we endure, if we endure
persecution, if we endure suffering, we will also reign
with him. There's that reward.
We get a reward for enduring and we're enduring now.
I mean, we, we endure. We're obviously nothing like the
persecution that Timothy or Paul, Peter and the like have
gone through. Each one of the apostles other
than John was martyred. But there was a strength that
people who live for Christ get when they hold on and they
endure the persecution. There's a strength, and Paul is
saying here that if we share in the suffering and in the
persecutions and we persevere in the faith, we don't give up, we
don't give out, we don't throw in the towel.
The hope is that we're going to reign with him.
It makes us stronger. There's a quote that I want to
share with you and it just simply says at the timberline
where the storms strike with the most fury, the sturdiest trees
are found. When we go through the hardest
trials, the hardest test, when we're in the hottest part of the
furnace. When we come out of that, we
become sturdier. Sturdier in Christ Jesus.
It's a time of preparation. So he says if we endure, we
shall also reign with Him. Revelations 3 and 21 says to him
who overcomes, I will grant to sit with me on my throne, as I
also overcame and sat down with my Father on his throne.
Mark 13 and 13 says, And you shall be hated for my name's
sake. You shall be not.
You might be. You will be hated for my name's
sake. Please don't think that there's
not people out there who hate us because of Jesus Christ.
That's the only reason they hate us because of Jesus Christ.
We stand for that name, but he also says, but he who endures to
the end shall be saved. We go on here to the second
part, which is a very interesting line.
And Paul, once again, thinking about the times in which he's
living at that particular time and all the things that's going
around him, he simply says this. If we deny him, he also will
deny us. That's very significant because
back at that particular time when they were going through the
persecutions, whenever the governors or the officers or the
Nero soldiers, when they would, when they would bring them in,
these Christians in and they would gather them together
before they would send them to the lions or before they would
threaten to behead them or before they would Pierce them
through with the sword, they would give them an option, a
chance to deny Jesus Christ. They would ask, do you want to
denounce them? Will you denounce that name?
And it's those who would hold on to the end and not deny Jesus
Christ. Many did not.
There's a book that I have called the The Soldiers, God
Soldiers. And it's just full of men who
gave their life for Christ generally during the time of
Reformation. But they gave their life because
when they were caught or they were arrested and they were tied
up to a stake to be burned before they would set the fire,
they would ask them, do you want to denounce that name?
And they would say no. And all of these men died a
horrific death of a martyr, every one of them.
But also wanted to let you know, remind you, I want to remind you
that 23 years ago, two kids, one named Dylan Kleibld, the other
named Eric Harris, walked into a high school in Colorado called
Columbine. And they proceeded to open fire
and kill 12 people before they, well, 13 people actually, before
they turned the guns on themselves.
These are obviously very troubled young men, but they
came to a young lady whose name was Cassie Bernard.
And she was well known as a as a Christian strong believer.
And they asked her a question. Eric Harris was the one that put
the gun to her head and asked her a question.
He asked her, do you still believe in your Jesus now?
And she said yes. And he shot her.
Her life was cut short at age 17 because she said yes.
I don't know that anyone in here will ever have to deal with
that, would ever have to make that decision.
But there are other decisions that we have to make for Jesus
Christ rather be on our jobs, in our communities, or even in our
families where we have to make the decision that we will not
denounce, we will not deny, we will not turn from Jesus Christ,
we will not disown him. And that's exactly what this
means when he says if we deny Him, it means if we disown him.
If we disown Him before men, he would disown us before the
Father. So there may be a time when we
have to stand and have to accept whatever consequence that's
coming if we do not deny or disown Jesus Christ.
Now, none of us know exactly what we would do at that
particular time, but I pray that God gives me the strength.
The way he gave it to Cassie when?
The way he gave it to so many of those reformers, the way he gave
it to Peter, the way he gave it to Paul, the way he gave it to
Philip and all the other apostles who were martyred at
that particular time. I pray that the power of Christ
would be upon me at that time and that I am able to sing a
hymn instead of denounce my Savior.
And I pray that each one of you would have the power to do that
as well. We don't know, but it may come.
Fear is usually the reason why people do denounce Jesus Christ.
Fear. And Paul's already told us
earlier that God did not give us a spirit of fear.
But we have a spirit of power of love and a sound mind.
And I pray that in that time that we would be able to have
the power to not disown our Savior.
Then he goes on to the 13 and he says if we are faithless, he
remains faithful. He cannot deny himself.
It's a very interesting line there because he's saying if we
are faithless now, he didn't say if you were have, if you have
little faith. He said if you are faithless, if
you don't believe, if you don't believe, he remains faithful.
He cannot deny himself. In the book of Numbers, the
Bible says that he is not a man, that he should lie, nor is he
the Son of Man, that he should repent.
So he will never do anything contrary to his character.
He will never do anything contrary to his word.
Whatever he promised, he will do.
Now for us, that can be a good thing.
For believers, that can be a good thing.
If we think about, if we think about what happened with
Abraham, think about what happened with David.
They were all promised something, but they all showed
at one point or another, they showed a lack of faith.
But God was faithful in every one of those situations.
And not only is God faithful, but even in the times when
someone doesn't believe at all, if you're an unbeliever and you
don't believe at all, unfortunately for you, God is
still faithful that as an unbeliever, if you go into
eternity and you have not received Him as Lord and Savior,
what He said was going to happen is going to happen.
The wrath of God will abide on you.
His promise is true. His Word is true.
So we go on and He's and we and we think about Peter because
there are times when we all are in a situation where we deny
Jesus Christ and there's situations where we are
faithless. If we're honest, we're probably
that way more than we want to be, but we understand that even
if we deny Jesus Christ, that if we repent, we can always come
back to him, just as he did with Peter.
Peter denied him three times. And yet what Jesus spoke about,
Peter came to be. Peter continued.
He continued to be not just an apostle, but one of the leaders
of the church because he told Peter before he even denied him,
he said, Peter, you're going to deny me.
You're going to deny me three times before the cock crows
twice. You're going to deny me three
times. But when you return, Peter,
strengthen your brothers because there's others that are going to
want to deny me as well. Strengthen your brothers.
So I don't know if we've ever been in a situation where we've
denied them. I don't know if we've been in a
situation where we have been faithless or lack of faith.
But I can tell you that our Savior is merciful, and He will
allow us to turn to Him. If we confess our faithlessness,
if we confess the fact that we denied them, we can turn to Him
and he will give us grace to receive us back to himself.
We don't have to die in our denial.
We don't have to die in our faithlessness.
If there's anyone out there that's not have not believed
Jesus Christ for your Lord and Savior, you don't have to die
that way. His arms are open right now and
saying to you, come to me, come to me.
He came to die for your sins and he's willing to receive you.
We don't have to die in that state.
But then we go to verse 14 and this is when he begins to speak
to us about approved workers and unapproved workers.
Here in verse 14. He says here, remind them of
these things, charging them before the Lord not to strive
about words to no profit, to the ruin of the hearers.
Now, first of all, he says remind and you know, you know,
Clark, Pastor Clark and myself, every Sunday, you know, when we
come up and we share the word of God, you know, it's not always
new things because we go chapter by chapter, book by book, line
by line. So we don't always share new
things. In fact, some of you who read
the word of God probably just as much as we do, if not more.
For some of you, you've already read a lot of the things that
we're already sharing, that we're sharing.
We're not giving anything new. Just like Paul says here, remind
them, I've already given you this.
I've already taught this to you, Timothy.
We've already taught this to the congregation.
So remind them. You don't have to give them
anything new, but we need to be reminded every now and then.
We need to be reminded about the cross.
Every now and then. We need to be reminded about the
mercy of God every now and then. We need to be reminded about the
promises that God gives us. We need to be reminded about
suffering. We need to be reminded about
repentance. Sometimes we need to be
reminded, and this is what Timothy is saying.
He says remind them of these things, charging them,
commanding them before the Lord not to strive about words.
Don't argue about words. Don't argue about words that
don't have no profit. Arguing about things that have
no eternal value. Don't argue about that.
Those kind of things. Timothy, stay away from that.
It doesn't do anything good. It doesn't lead to anything
positive, but what it does is that it destroys.
He says here that it's only that it actually ruins or that word
is subvert or destroy the hearers.
You discourage more people than you encourage when you argue
about words. And before we go to verse 15, I
want to drop down for a second and go to verse 16.
He says, But shun profane and idle babblings, for they will
increase, or in other words, they will lead to more
ungodliness. So he tells us to not argue or
not or not strive over words, and to shun or to keep away from
profane and idle babblings. And then in the middle of that,
he puts what used to be one of my most favorite verses, and it
still is, but now Hebrews 1166 kind of took over.
But this when I first got saved, this was my favorite verse.
I, I, I read this verse every single day and it says here, be
diligent to present yourself approved to God, a worker who
does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of
truth. That was so important to me when
I first got saved because I had such a hunger for the word, a
hunger for the word and I had a mentor who was big on rightly
dividing the word. So I would read that almost
every day and I would read it in the King James Version, which
basically says it almost says the same thing, but it changes a
few of the words. But the bottom line here is
this, and this is the most important part I want to give to
you. It says present yourself,
approve to God, not approve to man.
Notice what that says because it's very important.
It's not approve to man. We're not here, Pastor Clark and
I should never be teaching to try to make themselves
approvable to you or to any man or to any congregation.
That's not what this is about. That's not what we're called to
do. We're to study and make sure we
understand the word of God, to make ourselves approved unto
him. And that's why it's nestled in
between those two verses. Because to argue and strive
about words to no prophet, to the ruin of hears, that has
nothing to do with teaching the Word of God, profane and idle
babbling, that has nothing to do with the word of God.
Those things are ungodly. But when we study the word of
God and we are workmen, the Bible says we are workmen with
the word of God. We study it just like Paul said
a couple verses back, that one of the things we are is a
farmer, a hard working farmer. And in doing that, we have to
make sure that we are hard workers getting into the word of
God, spending time with him in prayer so that we rightly
divide. And that word rightly divide
actually means cutting straight, cutting the word of God
straight. We know that farmers cut furrows
straight. A Carpenter will cut a board
straight. We as pastors or as teachers of
the Word are to cut the Word straight, cut it straight, give
it straight. We don't add to it, we don't
take away from it, we don't sugarcoat it, we don't
breakdance around sin. We cut it straight just the way
the Lord gives it to us. And this and this sum, when he
says Sean, that means to keep away from profane means
irreverent, unconsecrated and babbling just simply means empty
chatter. He says stay away from those
things because they don't lead to godliness.
It leads to more ungodliness. These things only lead to
arguments, bitter arguments, bitter debates, and no one comes
out of it benefiting. No one benefits out of it.
But when you teach the word of God, there should be a spirit
that is along with it that will lead us to godliness.
It encourages us, it corrects us if need be, it convicts us, but
it leads us to godliness. 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?
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