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.
We all have a purpose and we should not, we should not make a
a mistake of putting our purpose as being the same as Our
Calling. It is not.
We all have a purpose. Everyone who was saved have the
purpose. And our purpose is to glorify
God and to worship God. That's the purpose of those of
us who are in Christ Jesus. It's to glorify God.
Paul's purpose is to worship and to glorify God as well, even
though his calling was to take the gospel to the Gentiles.
Many people go through life looking for purpose.
Some find a sense of purpose in things like careers, family,
college education, or other accomplishments.
And although those may be good things to do, they are far from
being a purpose for existence. In today's message, Pastor Lewis
wants you to know that God created you for a purpose, and
that purpose is to bring him glory.
He may call you to do great things in life, but your purpose
is to worship him in everything that you do.
Now here's Pastor Lewis in the Book of Second Timothy, chapter
3, with today's edition of Living Waters of Grace, I'm.
Going to ask that you would turn your Bibles, please, to the
Second Timothy, chapter 3. And we're going to beginning at
verse 10, we're going to go through to verse 17 today.
And while you're doing that, I'm going to just welcome everyone
for coming this morning. Thank you for blessing us with
your presence. Those of you who are new to
Calvary Chapel, if this is your first time being here, we want
to welcome you. And we want to thank you for
choosing to worship with us this morning.
And we pray that your worship experience would be good and
that you'll come back and see us again.
Amen. And those of you who are
listening by way of Grace FM or listening on YouTube or any
other social media option, we thank you for your presence and
we just welcome you with us this morning.
And as always, we want to welcome those who are listening
behind prison walls. We want to welcome you this
morning and say hello to you. And we pray that the service
would be a blessing to you as well.
Why don't we pray and go into the word of Godfather?
We need you. We thank you, Lord, that you did
plead for us on Calvary. We thank you, Father, for the
many blessings that you bestow upon us, particularly your
blessings of salvation, redemption.
You sanctify us by your word, the wisdom, Lord, that you give
us through your word. We thank you Father for meeting
every need in our lives. Lord, we thank you for the very
breath in our in our lungs this morning.
And Father, we need you this morning.
Father, we desire to have a manifestation of your spirit
this morning that you would speak to all of us, Lord, that
we would know that we are with you, Lord.
And when we leave here today, Lord calls us to be deeper in
you. Cause us to be convicted, cause
us to be encouraged, cause someone to turn their life
towards you. Lord Father, we can only do
these things or through the power of Your Holy Spirit.
No one came here today to hear me.
Father, we're all here to hear you.
We're your people and we're gathered before you this morning
and we're asking Lord, that you would speak to us.
In Jesus name we pray, Amen. So we are in the second Timothy.
We're in chapter 3 and we're going to start right there at
verse 10. I'm going to read a few verses
and then we'll go back and we'll make some commentary.
It simply says, but you have carefully followed my doctrine,
manner of life, purpose, faith, long-suffering, love,
perseverance, persecutions, afflictions which happened to me
at Antioch, at Iconium, at Lystra, what persecutions I
endured, and out of them all the Lord delivered me.
We can stop there for a second. And I just want to take us back
a few verses to when we first started, just to give you a
little background of where we're going.
When we first opened up this particular chapter, we talked
about the perilous times and the fact that we're in those last
days. And in doing so, Paul's talking
to Timothy, which is probably his last letter that he would
ever write. And he's telling Timothy about
the character of the men, the false teachers who will be
around in those last days, the unbelievers who will be around
in those last days, and how bad things will get, the depravity
of man and how bad things will get.
And in doing so, he focuses primarily on the fact that men
will become lovers of themselves, which will give
birth to a number of other negative characteristics that
men will have. And he listed things like
they'll be lovers of money, they'll be boasters, they'll be
proud, they'll be blasphemers, they'll be disobedient to
parents, unthankful, unholy. They'll be unloving, unforgiving
slanderers. They'll be without self-control,
brutal despisers of good. They'll be traitors.
They'll be headstrong, haughty, lovers of pleasure rather than
lovers of God. And then he kind of summarizes
that whole thing by saying that they will have a form of
godliness, but denying its power.
And then he admonished Timothy by saying from such turn away.
So Paul's just got finished giving Timothy this list of
traits that ungodly men, false prophets, false teachers will
demonstrate. And, and, and we see, I can see
some of those things in myself sometimes.
And you may be able to see some of these things in yourself.
And we can always ask for forgiveness.
We can go and repent of those things and ask for forgiveness.
And we serve a God who's willing and gracious enough to grant it.
But then we also have men who will not ask for forgiveness
because they are deceived. They are deceived and they're
blinded by the things of the enemy and they will not ask for
forgiveness. They think that they're doing
things the right way, but they are deceived.
So he switches from there. As he gets to verse 10, he
switches from that and he says, but you, oh Timothy, you oh man
of God. So we're we're seeing that
there's a switch here. We're going from the
characteristics that we want to stay away from the
characteristics that mark ungodly false teachers.
And now we're turning Paul's turning to Timothy and saying,
but you, Timothy, it's going to be different for you because you
have seen something different. You have witnessed something
different. You have known something
different, Timothy, in your lifestyle and he says, for you
have carefully followed my doctrine or you have carefully
examined my doctrine. You, you've examined my life.
You have been around me to imitate the things that I've
seen. You've examined, you know,
whether or not I'm real or if I'm fake, you know, because you
have been with me long enough to see these things.
So you've seen my life, Timothy. So he gets to and he says
you've, you've followed my doctrine.
He's going to list about 8 things that Timothy have
witnessed in his life. He said you have witnessed my
doctrine, Timothy. You've seen the things that I
teach. You've heard the things that
I've teach. You set out to me, you know
whether these things line up with the true Word of God.
You know, you know that I didn't make anything up.
You know that I didn't come up and start teaching psychology or
philosophy. I didn't get off into the
astrology and all these other wild things, New Age things.
I didn't get off into all that. I stuck with the Scriptures.
Timothy, you know that about me. You also know, Timothy, my
manner of life, and I love the fact.
Please don't miss this. The fact that Paul mentions his
manner of life right after he mentions his doctrine, that is
significant because that's the way it should be in our lives.
The doctrine and our manner of life should go together.
We should be, Paul is saying, I don't teach anything, Timothy,
that I'm not living in my life or endeavoring to live in my
life every day. And that should be us as well.
We should not be proclaiming anything to anybody that we are
not endeavoring to live ourselves.
So it's, it's, it's fitting that doctrine and manner of life
would follow one another. The manner of life, it's so
important because it's the manner of life that actually
gives, gives evidence to the doctrine that we're teaching.
The power of what we're teaching is lived out in our lives.
And that's what brings glory to God.
That's what brings glory to God. And Paul understands that
because the power truly worked in his life, because Paul wasn't
always this way. In fact, he told us back in
First Timothy chapter 1 and in verse 13 as he's given his
testimony, Paul says although I was formerly before I've met
Christ, before I gave my life to Christ, I was formerly A
blasphemer. I was a persecutor and an
insolent man. In other words, I was a violent
man, a violent and angry man, a prideful man.
So I wasn't always these things, but the power of God working in
me has changed me, Timothy. And you have seen my life.
And that's exactly what each and everyone of us probably had that
same testimony. We can all say that at one point
in our lives, we were a lot of things that we aren't now, thank
God, right? A lot of things that we are not
now. And that's good because that's
the power of God. That's the witness of the power
of God working in our lives. People are still looking for
miracles. They're looking for these, the
things that happened with Peter and the things that happened
with Paul and the other apostles back when the church was first
starting. How people were getting healed
from handkerchiefs and, and how people were the miracles of
people who were limping or was, you know, you know, they were
paralyzed and all of a sudden they were walking and people
coming back from the dead. We start to look for those
things, but we see these things spiritually now in our own
lives. We limp.
We didn't walk or run into salvation.
We limped into salvation. We were those who were
paralyzed. Our lives are paralyzed and Paul
is saying here that God has done miracles in my life and it
changes the power of God working in my life.
And now that's how you are able to see and witness the manner,
my manner of life. And then he goes on into purpose
and he gives, he starts to talk about his, his purpose.
And we all have a purpose and we should not, we should not make
a, a mistake of putting our purpose as being the same as Our
Calling. It is not.
We all have a purpose. Everyone who was saved had the
purpose, and our purpose is to glorify God and to worship God.
That's the purpose of those of us who are in Christ Jesus.
It's to glorify God. Paul's purpose is to worship and
to glorify God as well. Even though his calling was to
take the gospel to the Gentiles, it was to take the gospel to to
all these different nations. That was his calling, Our
Calling maybe something different, but that was Paul's
calling. But his purpose, His purpose was
to worship God. One of my favorite authors is AW
Tozer, and in The Purpose of Man, that the book he has called
The Purpose of Man, he makes this quote.
He says worship is a man's full reason for existence.
Worship is why we are born, and it's why we are born again.
And then he goes on. He talks about his own purpose
and he says, I desire to deliver my soul as a prophet of God and
explain from the Bible why we were created and why we are
here. It may not satisfy the temporary
needs at that time, but it will satisfy something bigger,
grander and more eternal. And then he goes in to this and
says that biblically defined purpose is this, that we might
worship God and enjoy him forever.
That's our purpose. And from that we all have
different callings, but the purpose is to glorify God and
everything that we do in life should be in worship and praise
to God. We come on Sundays and we
worship and thank God that we have a place that we can come
together corporately and worship.
Thank God we have that we can do that together.
We encourage each other. All that is worship.
Everything we do is worship up here.
The the fact that we we hear the songs of worship, the fact that
we have people working in AV they're doing it in worship.
The people who are working with our kids and teaching them the
word of God on their level at this age is all in worship and
in praise to God. Clark and myself, when we stand
at the sacred desk and we share the gospel, we share the
scriptures, that is in worship to God.
Listening to the Word of God and sitting under the word of God is
in worship to God. But our worship does not stop
there. When we get up on Monday morning
and we say hello to our wife in the morning, it should be in
worship to God. When we deal with our kids, it
should be in worship to God. When we go on our jobs, it
should be in worship to God and we're in the in the supermarket,
we should be in worship to God. Any contact that we have with
anybody should be an example of our worship to God, and that
should happen seven days a week, not just on Wednesdays and on
Sundays. And God, I pray that you would
help us to be able to live a life that's in worship to Him.
And that should be our prayer, you know, because we need the
Holy Spirit to help us to do that.
Because sometimes we don't worship God, We worship
ourselves. We worship our thoughts and we
worship our own feelings. And that's, we're normal,
that's, that's being human. And that's why we need the Holy
Spirit to help us to always be cognizant of who it is that
we're living for, of who it is that died for us.
So everything we should do should be in worship to him.
In first Peter chapter 2 and verse 9, he says, but you are a
chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, his
own special people. I love the way that the King
James says it. It says a peculiar people that
you may proclaim the praises of him who called you out of
darkness into his marvelous light.
And again that happens through the power of the Holy Spirit.
We do not need a neon sign to and tell anyone that we're saved
or that we're Christians. They only should be able to see
our lives and be able to examine our lives and they would be able
to see our purpose and be able to see who it is that we live
for now. The next three that he states or
that he mentions, the next three traits that he tells Timothy
that he has observed are things that are consistent with the
fruit of the Spirit. He says my faith or
faithfulness. He says my long-suffering or his
patience and his love. Love is really significant with
Paul. In fact, Paul wrote a whole
chapter on it back in first first Corinthians chapter 13.
He wrote a whole chapter on love because that's how significant
it is to him. And he says the love bears all,
believes all, helps all, and endures all.
Love would be important to Paul because that's why he wrote this
letter. He wrote this letter under the
power of God because of his love for his son in the Spirit,
Timothy. He wrote it because of the love
that he had for the Church of Ephesus.
The same thing he did when he wrote to the Church of the
Thessalonians. Paul loved the people that he
ministered to. In fact, he loved him so much
that he literally put his life on the line to be able to share
the gospel to all of these people.
That where he started churches. He literally put his life on the
line to do it and that was because of his love.
Of course, he had a very good example.
His Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, who did the exact same
thing for us, put his life, it took him all the way to the
cross because of his love for us, because of his love for us.
And he says to us that we should deny ourselves, that we should
not be selfish about our lives, but we should deny ourselves and
that we should pick up our crosses or the hardships that we
have, the things that we have to deal with on a daily basis, pick
up those crosses, sacrifice ourselves on those crosses, die
daily to ourselves, and that we should follow him.
That's what he asks us to do out of love.
So Paul does love. In fact, he loves so much that
in Romans Chapter 9, Paul said of his brethren, he said, I wish
that I myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, for my
brother. And then at First Thessalonians
2 and 8, he says We not only imparted the gospel to you, but
also our own lives because you became dear to us.
So Paul understood love, and he definitely understood that it
was necessary to have that agape love that can only come through
the Holy Spirit in order for him to do what it is that God had
called him to do. And that's the same for us as
well. So Mark of a Christian, that's
why Jesus said that. This is how you'll know that
we're all Christians because we have love one for another.
When people come in this house, I love the fact that people will
say that, man, you know, you can tell that they love each other
and they should be able to say that.
They should be able to say that and I know that I feel love when
I come into this house. I feel love.
Thank God for that. He goes on and he talks about
the perseverance, you know, being steadfast.
Verse 11, he says the persecutions, afflictions which
happened to me at Antioch. Paul was very clear about the
fact that he did go through a number of persecutions and
sufferings that he did at different places where he would
preach the gospel. When he went to Antioch, he
taught the gospel there. When he went into the
synagogue's there were number of people who believed and as a
result of that, the unbelieving Jews, they wanted to stir up the
people, stir up the Gentiles that were there.
And they ended up rising up in persecution against Paul and his
companions and they had to leave.
And they went into Iconium. And when they went to Iconium,
the very same thing. He taught the scriptures and
Iconium, he taught the word of God and he preached the gospel
and there were many people who heard the gospel and they
listened and they became, and, and they put their faith in
Jesus Christ. And as a result of putting their
faith in Jesus Christ, they began to gather together and,
and, and, and, and have an assembly themselves.
Well, the people who lived there who were not believers didn't
like that either. So they persecuted Paul and
wanted to stone him and ran him out of Iconium.
And then when Paul got the Lystra, it was so bad that when
Paul preached the gospel there and I and in Lystra, which is
probably where Timothy heard the gospel from Paul the first time,
we understand that it was the people from.
Antioch that got together with the people from Iconium and all
of them came down to Lystra, and they began to want to persecute
Paul. That's how bad it was for Paul.
But in every situation, he continued to put his life on the
line to share the gospel because he believed that the one that he
believed in was able to keep him, was able to keep him, and
so he did what God called him to do.
It may be sometimes where it seems hairy or seems dangerous
for us to share the gospel or seem that it may cost us
something if we share the gospel.
But we have to believe that the one that we're serving is
greater than anyone else. And He's able to keep us.
He's able to protect us. He's able to deliver us from any
situation that we may run into as a result of being faithful to
him. So he gets to Lystra and there
he is stoned. So Paul witnessed that.
He witnessed being stoned in. And it's possibility, don't know
for sure because the Bible never really says so, but it's a
possibility that when he was there in Lystra and when they
stoned him and they thought he was dead, then they took him
outside of the city and their disciples gathered around him
and they supposed that he was dead, That it was a possibility
that maybe he was truly dead at that particular time.
And maybe we don't. Again, we don't know because the
Bible doesn't say that. But that could have been where
he actually had the experience of the 3rd heaven during that
particular time. He could have had that
experience at that particular time where he went into the 3rd
heaven and witnessed the things that he was not even able to
talk about, but he was stoned. He was thought to be dead.
But then he got up and again, because of his steadfastness or
his perseverance, because of his love and because of his
faithfulness, Paul got up and went right back into the same
city that they had actually stoned him and continued to do
the work that God had called him to do.
What an example of steadfastness.
What an example of someone who is just relentless to do what it
is that God has called him to do.
Lord, give me that steadfastness.
Give me that relentlessness, that fearlessness in you,
Father, so that I can under any circumstance, do Your will.
And then in verse 12, Paul makes it clear to Timothy, I mean,
this is this is not something that you probably want to put on
your mirror or your refrigerator when you get up in the morning.
Verse 12, yes, all who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will
suffer persecution. That's probably not a good
motivation speech for those who, you know, want to serve the
Lord. I mean, you probably would have
thought that Paul or, you know, will want to say something a
little bit more encouraging, but Paul was a straight shooter and
his attitude was I'm going to give you the truth because you
know what? Jesus Christ gave us the truth
when he talked about, you know, following him.
And if you go to the 10th chapter of Matthew just for a
2nd 10th chapter of Matthew, Jesus makes a very interesting
statement over here, Tim chapter over here in verse 16.
He says, behold, I send you out his sheep in the midst of
wolves. Therefore be wise as serpents
and harmless as doves, but beware of men for they will
deliver you up. And this is his rallying speech
to get them to be motivated to go out and serve him.
They're going to deliver you up to councils.
They're going to scourge you in the synagogues.
You will be brought before governors and and kings for my
name's sake. And he goes on and say, You'll
be delivered up, but don't worry, because we'll give you
what to speak at that particular time, for it will be given to
you in that hour what you should speak.
For it is not you who will speak, but the spirit of your
Father who speaks in you. This has been another
encouraging edition of Living Waters of Grace.
Pastor Louis 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.
We 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 tune
into 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.