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. I love the fact that we can send
out a text or ask someone to do something and it's done and they
don't do it because of what He asked me or she had.
They do it because they're serving the Lord.
And whenever you're serving the Lord, doing anything, it's not a
job, it's not inconvenient. All you got to do is think about
all He done for you. It's very easy to go out and do
something for the Lord. Love agape, love unconditional
sacrificial love. Seek to give, not to gain.
What turns a simple task into an act of worship?
In today's message, Pastor Lewis celebrates the joy of seeing
someone serve the moment they're asked.
They don't move because a person asked.
They move because they're serving the Lord.
When you truly see all Jesus has done for you, no request feels
inconvenient. It's no longer a job.
It becomes an offering. Love like His makes service a
delight, not a duty. How do you turn everyday tasks
into offerings of love for Jesus?
Now here's Pastor Lewis in First Timothy Chapter 6 with today's
edition of Living Waters of Grace.
Those who desire to be rich, they fall into temptation and a
snare. And we know that those things
all have to do with what's going on the inside of us.
And the snare are pitfalls that we fall into.
And it says and have fallen to many foolish and harmful lusts
which drown men in destruction. Now it's a picture of a man
being taken down underwater, being taken down and held down,
weighted down by destruction by their lust and by perdition, by
their lust. They got so many things that
they're lusting for. It's like a weight on them
because they can never attain it all.
So it's just constant, constant worrying and constant striving
for something that they can never really achieve and be
satisfied with. And it's like a weight that
takes them down and holds them and drowns them in it.
And then it says here in verse 10, And this is a very well used
Scripture, but probably one of the most quoted scriptures that
we have in the New Testament. It says for the love of money is
a root of all kinds of evil. Now money is not evil.
God created money. Money is not evil.
He said the love of it is what's evil, because once we develop a
love for money, it becomes an idol and we put it in a position
that's even higher than we put God, and we begin to do all the
kind of things in order to obtain money because of our love
for money. And it said it is not the root
of all kinds of evil. The Bible says it is a root of
all kinds of evil. There are many different paths
and ways to end up on an evil path.
Money is just one of them. Money is just one of them.
But it is indeed a way to end up on an evil path.
The love of money, for which some have strayed from the faith
in their greediness and pierced themselves through with many
sorrows. The love of money.
And what is so sad about that? Because the love of money leads
men into many, many ways of error.
Many ways of error. The desired riches are traps, it
leads us into bondages and it causes the Word of God to become
unfruitful, being choked out the cares of this world and the
deceitfulness of riches and the desires of other things.
That's the word speaks about in Mark chapter 4, verse 18, which
in the parable to solar, it chokes out the truth of the word
and instead people focus on the cares of this world and the
deceitfulness of riches, and riches are deceitful and the
desire for other things. These foolish and harmful lusts
will take us down. And it has destroyed many of
people. It's the love of money that has
destroyed marriages. It's destroyed companies, it's
destroyed relationships, it destroys families.
Someone gets a trust or something and and you know,
someone passes and when it's time to go read the will, Oh my
goodness, people begin. I mean, they stop speaking
because they got more than they got.
It breaks up families. People stop speaking for years
over money and the bad thing about it and I've watched this
happen before when it says here for some have strayed from the
faith in their greediness and pierced themselves through with
many sorrows. There are so many people that
I've seen I've witnessed myself that has a gift given by God to
either sing. There are great musicians or
very gifted communicators of the Word of God, and they may start
out using that gift to serve the Lord.
They start out using that gift to serve the Lord.
But as the love of money creeps into their hearts, because
somebody said to them, you could be making so much more money.
You could be driving so much of A better car.
You could be living in such a bigger house, You could be
having so many more things at your disposure.
And they begin to leave the faith and begin to sing for the
world. And I've watched people as their
lives crumble as a result of that, their lives crumble.
You could probably name many artists that are very popular
who have started off in the gospel, ended up singing for the
world, and made shipwreck of their faith and of their life.
Made shipwreck. Guard your ministry.
Guard the anointing that God has given you.
Don't use it frivolously. It cannot be shared in the world
and with the faith. It's to serve God.
It is to serve God. He gave it to us for that
purpose and they pierced themselves through.
And that's like a picture of a bait.
Somebody hangs up bait over an open pit and a wild animal
comes, and because he's so driven by wanting that and the
love for that flesh, he's so driven by that.
He takes a leap for that bait and he falls into the pit, which
has a stake that he falls onto and pierces himself through.
But he was deceived by the bait, and that's exactly what the love
of money is. It's like a bait.
People who sit in casinos all night long gambling because of
love of money. People become drug dealers
because of the love of money. People become liars in business
and fraud because of the love of money.
Cheat on insurance, Medicare, fraud and so many other things
because of the love of money. They choose the love of money
over family. So the family never sees them
anymore because they're spending all their time chasing money.
It's a very sad thing. So then we go on to verse 11.
It says, but you old man of God, flee these things.
And I love the way Paul makes that change.
He makes that difference. He was initially talking about
ungodly people and people doing ungodly things, but he said, but
not you, Timothy, man of God, you're not going to do that.
Timothy. I want you to flee these things.
Flee what things? All the things that we just got
finished talking about. Flee the love of money, flee
false doctrine. Flee these arguments and these
debates over over empty things. Flee those things.
Flee the desire to be rich, Timmy, flee from those things.
The Bible tells us that we should flee from youthful lust,
flee those things, run away from those things.
The title of this message was actually flee, follow, and
fight. Because throughout our entire
Christianity, throughout our entire journey through this life
of being a Christian, we're going to have to flee from some
things, follow after the right things, and fight to stand on
what God has given us to stand on.
It can all be summed up in those three things, but in this one he
says flee, flee. That means get out of there,
flee away from those things, turn from those things, go the
opposite direction of those things.
And then he says and pursue. And he's going to talk about now
what to pursue. Pursue righteousness, pursue
godliness. Righteousness is a right
standing in Christ and personal integrity, godliness, living
holy, having a conduct that displays Jesus Christ, that
witnesses with Jesus Christ faith, which is faithfulness,
being dependable in the faith and being trustworthy.
I love the fact that we can send out a text or ask someone to do
something and it's done and they don't do it because of what he
asked me or she had. They do it because they're
serving the Lord, and whenever you're serving the Lord, doing
anything, it's not a job, it's not inconvenient.
All you got to do is think about all He done for you.
It's very easy to go out and do something for the Lord.
Love agape, love unconditional sacrificial love.
Seek to give, not to gain. According to Warren Weirsby.
Seek to give and not to gain. That's what godliness does.
And also patience. Patience is that endurance, that
perseverance, that steadfastness even through the tough times of
testing and suffering and affliction, He says have
patience through those things because when you get to the end
of those things, God have a blessing.
He's adding things to you. He's adding things, adding
things that will help you to be able to live the Christian life.
Hebrews 1036 says for you have need of patience, that after you
have done the will of God, you might receive the promise.
And then gentleness or meekness, which is power under control.
It's a form of self-control. Those are the things that he
says that we should be following after.
And then he says here in verse 12, he says fight the good fight
of faith, lay hold on eternal life, to which you were also
called and have confessed the good confession in the presence
of many witnesses. He says lay hold on eternal
life, lay hold on the Christian life, on all of these values, on
all of these things that pursue godliness.
He said lay hold on those things, grab on to them, grab on
to those things. Let that be our life, even in
Timothy as you have confessed the good confession in the
presence of many witnesses. Verse 13 says I urge you and
what he's saying here is I charge you or I command you in
the sight of God who gives life to all things and before Christ
Jesus who witnessed a good confession before Pontius
Pilate. So it's not just us that he sent
and have made a good confession. Jesus Christ himself is our
example of one who made a good confession in the face of all
death and evil. When he stood before Pontius
Pilate back in Matthew chapter 27, verse 11, and Pilate asked
him, are you the King of the Jews?
Are you the King? Jesus said, you've said right,
You said correctly. He didn't dodge it, He admitted
it. He made that confession before
Pilate. You have said right.
So he said, make that that good confession that even Jesus
Christ gave before Pilate. And then in verse 14, he said
that you keep this commandment without spot blameless until our
Lord Jesus Christ appearing now. So when you talk about making a
good confession, we have to think about what is it that
would stop us from making a good confession before the world?
What is this that stop us from making our profession our
proclamation? Is there anything that pushes
you off to the edge and closes your mouth and causes you to be
quiet or to hide who you are or to deny who you are?
Is there anything that the world could threaten or anything that
the world could put before you that could cause you to not lay
hold on what the Lord has given you this life?
And those are the things that we pray about.
Lord, I'm weak in this area. Help me, Holy Spirit, help me.
This is an area, Lord, that causes me to fear.
Lord, strengthen me, strengthen me.
We can go to him for any of those things and He'll give it
to us because we're his children.
He loves us. He wants us to have a good
confession before the world, but sometimes we don't.
We don't have to feel condemned because we fall short of that.
We go to the Lord and we ask him for it.
So then in verse 15, I love this part.
It's probably my favorite part because Paul basically ain't
doing him a worship in here. He's just worshipping straight
up worship. He's preaching and I love to
hear Paul preach. He says which he will manifest
in his own time, meaning Jesus Christ.
He will manifest his own presence in his own time.
He who is now listen to this, listen to this doxology here.
He who is the blessed and only potentate, that means the only
sovereign. He's a sovereign and we don't
have to be afraid of kings because Jesus Christ is the King
of kings and Lord of Lords. He's telling Timothy, don't be
afraid of whoever's in power there in Ephesus.
Don't be afraid of that, because you serve the King of Kings and
you serve the Lord of Lords. Who you answer to is much higher
and greater than anybody that those who are above you answer
to. We should remember that and
rejoice on that. Even if we know we're on the job
and someone's trying to do us harm.
I don't have to worry about that.
You are not the king. You are just a king.
I serve the King of Kings and we can go to him.
And then he goes on. In verse 16 he says who alone
has immortality? He's preaching.
He alone has life. He there is no death in him.
He's alpha and Omega. He's beginning and he is the
end. He's the 1st and he is the last.
He's everlasting. He's everlasting.
He alone has immortality. Dwelling in unapproachable
light, whom no man has seen or can see, to him be honor and
everlasting power. Amen.
Unapproachable light. The Bible says that God is
light, and in him is no darkness at all.
Not that there's some darkness in some areas.
He said there's no darkness at all.
There's nothing that taints the glory of God.
Nothing contain it. He's pure light.
And then he goes in verse 17, he says command those who were rich
in this present age not to be halty nor to trust in uncertain
riches, but in the living God who gives us richly all things
to enjoy. So we don't trust in uncertain
riches, but we trust in the living God.
But he says those who were rich, now, as we hear that, we're
probably thinking around here, we're probably thinking, well,
wait a minute, that's not us, because I sure ain't rich.
You know that ain't me. So this must be for somebody
else. Actually, when you think about
it, those of us that are in this country are much more rich than
what most people are in other places around this world.
Just about everybody here has a house.
Just about everybody here has a car, clothing, shoes on our
feet. Just about everybody here can
walk to a refrigerator and get something out of it to eat.
Just about everybody here can at the very least go to McDonald's
or Burger King and get whatever they want to eat.
Just about everybody here, there's no one that's that
destitute here. So when he's talking about the
rich, that's pretty much all of us, because compared to other
people who live in ways that you can't even imagine, we are rich.
We are rich. So he goes on, he says here, nor
to trust in uncertain riches. Anything that's temporary,
anything that's temporal is uncertain riches.
Money is uncertain riches. You can have money today and not
have it tomorrow. People can come in and steal
your money, take your assets. People can take.
You can't trust in that. You can't trust in those things.
Bible says that that we have to make sure that what we trust in
are things that have eternal value.
Those are the things that we trust in.
And then he said he who gives richly all things to enjoy.
God gives us things to enjoy, but not to abuse and not to
worship, but He gives us all things richly to enjoy.
Let them do good that they may be rich in good works.
Now this is the true, this is richness and this is what God is
asking for us to do good and good works, ready to give,
willing to share, storing up for themselves a good foundation for
the time to come that they may lay hold on eternal life over in
Matthew chapter 6. Verse 19 to 20 says do not lay
up for yourself treasures on earth, where the moth and rust
destroy and where thieves break in and steal.
But lay up for yourself treasures in heaven, where
neither the moth nor the rust destroys, and where the thieves
do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is,
there your heart will be also. Those are treasures in heaven
that are eternal. They're not temporary.
So we don't have to trust in anything that doesn't last.
And then over in verse 20, we're about to finish you up.
He says, O Timothy, guard what was committed to your trust,
avoiding the profane and idle babblings and contradictions of
what is falsely called knowledge.
He says, guard what is committed to your trust.
What was committed to Timothy's trust was his ministry, the word
of God, the gospel, just like it was committed to Paul.
Paul said this word was committed to me back in chapter
1, and here he's saying it's committed to your trust,
Timothy, because I've given it to you.
And Timothy, I've given it to you just the way it was given to
me. It's in the same condition.
You know, it's always a blessing when someone gives you something
and you can give that to someone else and it's in the same
condition as the way that you received it.
That's how we should receive the Word of God.
We should receive the Word of God, the doctrines of God, when
we give it to somebody else. We should give it the same way
it was given to us, as completely, as full with grace,
mercy and righteousness as it was given to us, avoiding the
profane of idle babblings. Forget those empty things, those
worldly empty words, Timothy. Stay away from those things.
Avoid those things and what is so falsely called knowledge.
Now back in that particular time, there was a heresy called
narcissism that was starting to to get into the church, trying
to make its way into the church. And narcissism is basically just
a belief that all matter is evil and and that people can be saved
basically through knowledge. And that's why all these
theories and things were coming up.
Stay away from that because the Bible tells us that we are saved
by grace through faith in Christ Jesus alone.
That's how we are saved, not through just knowledge of things
that has empty value. 21 By professing it, by professing
those empty things, those things, the science or falsely
called knowledge, by professing those things, some have strayed
concerning the faith. People got into those things, it
started to get into them, and next thing you know, they have
strayed away from the faith. They're not preaching the gospel
anymore. They're preaching a facsimile of
the gospel, something that's not even connected to true faith.
And then these last four words are very powerful.
Grace be with you. Amen.
Grace, this is not just the unmerited favor of God, but this
is the power of God to be able to do all those things that Paul
has given Timothy instructions to do.
We all need grace to be able to walk out the things of the
gospel we need grace to do. We can't do it in our own
strength. We can't do it.
You can have a whole list of things and you can try on your
own strength to go out there and live it on your own.
It won't work. We need the power of the Holy
Spirit to enable us to do these things.
And this is what Paul was telling Timothy.
Be with you, and that's plural. That means to be with you all.
So as we prepare, I just want us to know and remember the fact
that Jesus Christ gave up the glory that he had in heaven and
sacrificed his life to bring us this gospel truth, to bring it
to us so that we can walk it out, to bring it to us, so that
we can live it out. He gave it to us to do.
Thank you for tuning in to Living Waters of Grace with
Pastor Lewis Harold. 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 win. 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
worked through mentoring. It's a beautiful relationship
when the hearts are in the right place to learn and grow.
You 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.