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.
It's also important that we remember that the gift is in
you. You're not the gift, he said.
The gift that's in you. We're not the gift.
Don't let people think you're the gift.
Don't let people make you believe that you are the gift.
The gift is in you. It's in US.
Whatever that gift is. Teaching, praise and worship, AV
leadership, whatever the gift is, administration, it doesn't
matter. The gift is what's in you.
Maybe you were born with some natural talent.
You can sing with little to no effort.
Your whole life people have admired your gift and poured out
compliments and encouragement. If that's you listening right
now, thank God for that gift. But it is easy to start to let
some of that gifting go to your head, to begin to think that you
are the source of that gift. Today, Pastor Lewis challenges
us to remember the giver of the gift and focus our attention on
glorifying him rather than exulting in our gift.
Now here's Pastor Lewis in the Book of Second Timothy Chapter
1, as he begins his message Last Words.
Let's turn in our Bibles, please, to Second Timothy
chapter 1. Let's pray and go into the Word
of God. Amen.
Father, We thank you, Lord, once again for your faithfulness to
this house, and not only to this house, but for all those who
call upon your name. Father, we thank you for the
things that our eyes have seen, Lord, and the things that our
ears have heard. We thank you that we are in the
country, Lord, that has been defended by men and women who
have a heart, Lord, for freedom, and we thank you for our
freedom. We can stand here today and
teach Your word and sit together, Lord, under Your word
and not be ashamed of the testimony of Jesus Christ
because of the freedoms that we have.
And we thank you for that Lord, in Jesus name.
Now, Father, as we listen to your word, I pray, Father, that
you open your mouth and speak to us.
Lord, no one came here to see me.
All came here to hear from you. So I pray, Lord, that Your Holy
Spirit would just be upon each and every one of us, that you
would use me, Lord, just as a, as a tool in your hand, Lord, as
a vessel. Speak through me, Father, in
Jesus name we pray, Amen. So over here in Second Timothy
chapter one, we have already just completed First Timothy and
what we've seen is that Paul is giving instruction to his young
protege Timothy, and he met Timothy back in Acts chapter 16.
You can read about when they initially came together on
Paul's missionary journey through Ephesus.
And what we find is that Paul Wood took a real liking to
Timothy because of Timothy's faithfulness.
Even as a young man, he was faithful.
And, and as we move into now, the second chapter or the second
book of Timothy, like you said last week, there are three
pastoral epistles, first Timothy, second Timothy, and
also Titus. Even though it's not necessarily
in that order, it is actually the correct order is actually
First Timothy Titus. And then Second Timothy is
actual order. And I'll tell you the reason why
it's important for us to talk about that or to mention that is
because it's here in Second Timothy where Paul realizes that
he is facing impending death. So this is probably the last
letter that Paul not probably it is the last letter that Paul
will write and he understands that and he's dealing with it
from the perspective of a man who knows that he is facing his
death. So we're dealing with that.
So as we read through this, please keep in mind that we're
listening to a man who knows that his in is imminent as we
read through this. And maybe you'll be able to just
pick up and we want to point some things out, but you'll be
able to pick out certain things that he says that I think are
just amazing to be able to say at his end.
And you can just take a second to think, If you knew that you
only had a couple days to live, what would be the thing on your
mind most? What would be the thing on your
heart the most? Who would you want to talk to?
Who would you want to speak to? Who would you want to ask
forgiveness of? Who would you want to forgive?
Who would you want to reconcile with?
What would you want to correct in your life if you knew?
You knew you only had a few days to live?
Not many of us have the privilege of knowing when we're
about to go. Not many of us know that, which
is why it's so important that we live every day like it's our
last. Because it very well could be.
You heard people say here today and gone tomorrow.
That's actually not true. You could be here today and gone
today, so you might want to live your life.
We all should be living our lives in a way that we are
mindful of the fact. I think it was in the book of
Psalms where it is written, that we ask the Lord to teach us to
number our days, that we may apply our hearts unto wisdom.
So we live like we don't have forever to live, but we live
that we know and we understand that we too have impending
death. And it was even more significant
for Paul because even his surroundings was dark and it was
cold. He was in a Roman prison.
This is a second imprisonment. He was in a Roman prison.
He was basically lowered down through a hole in the ground.
He was in a dungeon. Wasn't even a prison.
Compared to the things that we see today as a prison, Paul was
probably in some of the worst conditions you can think of.
He was in a hole in the ground where he was around all of his
own waste, along with probably others that was there too as
well before he got there. And not only was he beaten, but
Paul was in shackles. He was in chains, as we'll see
later. He mentions his chains.
Why would a man need to still be in chains if he's already been
beaten and in prison? But this is what Paul suffered
and he suffered it for the Gospel.
And he was during the time of the Nero era, you know,
Christians were blamed at that particular time for burning down
Rome. Rome had burned down and and
Nero, because he hated Christians, he blamed the
Christians for doing it. Most people think that Nero was
the one that did it because he wanted to kind of change Rome.
He wanted to do a renovation project in Rome.
So he chose to torch the place and he blamed it on the
Christians. And it was with harsh, harsh
treatment of the Christians that he began to execute believers in
that area. At that particular time, he'd
already killed Peter by crucifying him upside down.
And now Paul was awaiting his own execution in prison.
So it was a really dark time. So it was during this time that
Paul began to pen a letter. Now, people believe that he
dictated the letter and it was Luke who was with him at that
time that actually wrote the letter, but it was definitely
God used Paul to do this. And the other amazing thing that
I have to point out, and I know we talked about this before
before we can get into this, but I have to mention the fact that
God's sovereignty cannot be topped.
It can't even be compared with God's sovereignty.
He's asking in this letter that Timothy come to him quickly.
Timothy, come quickly. I got things I want to say to
you, Timothy. It would be just like someone
who was passing and they know they're passing and they're
calling out to you and they're asking you to come quickly
because I, I don't know how much time I have.
And Paul is saying, Timothy, come quickly.
Come, be diligent to come. But what's amazing, what's
really amazing about that is the fact that this letter or these
instructions that Paul gives to Timothy was meant to be directly
to Timothy. He wrote this just in case
Timothy didn't get there in time.
This was just in case Timothy didn't get there in time.
And because of this, God set it up so that we could all benefit
from this letter that he gave to Timothy.
Paul gives him 5 instructions throughout this letter.
There's five things that Paul gives him as instructions for
Christian living. And the point of the matter is,
is that again, because of God's sovereignty and his love, he
knew that we need to know these five things.
That's the sovereignty and the love of God.
So let's move into this. We're in Second Timothy chapter
1. And right here in verse 1 of
chapter 1, Paul says, Paul, an apostle of Jesus Christ by the
will of God according to the promise of life which is in
Christ Jesus. What's amazing here is that as
he opens up all of his letters or most of his letters, he
always talks about the fact that he has authority to write this
because he is an apostle not of himself, not an apostle of
himself, but apostle by the will of God.
He's apostle of Jesus Christ, of the will of God.
He is a sent servant. He was sent by the will of God.
So he reminds us that Paul was one who was sent.
He was not one who just went. So Paul understood that his
authority came from God. And he's saying that right up
front. So everything that he says to
Timothy, it bears that weight. And he says according to the
promise of life, which is in Christ Jesus.
And that's really important to him right now because Paul was
facing impending death. So his heart, his heart was to
focus on the promise that God has given to him through Christ
Jesus, which is the promise of life.
And that's exactly what he was hold on to while he was there in
that dark, cold, dingy, smelly, stinking cell.
That hold. He was focusing on the fact that
he had a promise from God of life, and every one of us have
that promise as well. And that's the message that not
only did Paul go out and share with everyone, but that's the
message that we have, which is why we should be confident with
the message that we have to give to other people.
We have the promise of life. No one else has that promise, no
one else. We have the promise of life
through Christ Jesus. And then he says in verse 2 to
Timothy, a beloved son, a beloved son.
Paul always talked about his passion, his love for Timothy.
And Timothy was a son in the faith.
And Paul always acknowledged that.
And then he says, and here's when he talks about what I call
the divine triplets, he mentions, he says grace, mercy,
and peace from God and the Father of Jesus Christ our Lord.
James, it's interesting that he talks about mercy and all the
pastoral letters. We notice that he mentions the
word mercy and he mentions that because Paul understood that as
a pastor, there's no one that should be before the mercy seat
more than pastors. There's no one else that should
be hastening to come before the mercy seat more than pastors.
We need mercy, and we should know that we need mercy.
And he understands that. In fact, in James 31, it says
that instructors or teachers will be held to a stricter
judgment. So we need the mercy of God.
We need the mercy of God. All of us need God's mercy.
And if it wasn't for God's mercy, we wouldn't be here today
in Christ Jesus if it wasn't for his mercy.
And he goes on in verse 3, and we're now about to get into what
is probably the meat of this, but he says, I thank God whom I
serve with a pure conscience as my forefathers did.
He talks about a pure conscience and now he's not saying that he
did everything perfect when he served God, He didn't do
everything perfect, but he had a pure conscience because he was
able to take everything that he did before the Lord.
So if he did slip up, in fact, he talked about in Romans 7, he
talked about slipping up quite a bit.
He said the things that I want to do, I don't do the things
that I should do, you know, things I shouldn't do, those
things I do. So he realizes that he still
sins. Paul still sins, but he had a
pure conscience because he was he would acknowledge that sin
and take it before the Lord and he would become pure just as we
can serve with the pure conscience.
It doesn't mean that we don't do anything that we don't need to
repent for we do. But the pure conscience coming
to the fact that we don't hold long accounts with God.
I love the way Clark always say that, you know, keep short
accounts, you know, with the Lord and we do that by when we
do slip up, the Holy Spirit prompts us and lets us know that
we slip up and we hit our knees and ask for forgiveness.
Acknowledge it. We come into agreement with God
that we have sinned. And this is what Paul was
saying. So Paul was saying, I served
with a pure conscience. Ain't nothing lingering.
Ain't nothing lingering, nothing lingering.
The things that I've done, I acknowledged it.
I acknowledged it. And he says also as my father's
did. So he goes back to thinking
about the patriarchs that are in his life that served before him,
the Abrahams, The Isaacs and the Jacob who had faith in God and
they served with faith in God. And Paul said, I served in that
same way. And he says as without ceasing,
I remember you in my prayers night and day.
You know, sometimes it's a thought that when someone gets
saved, oh, don't have to worry about them now, Don't have to
worry about them now. I ain't got to pray for them as
much as they had to pray when they were out there in that
street. Oh, I ain't got to.
No, it's the other way around. When someone gets saved, those
prayers should not diminish. They should intensify.
They should intensify and especially if they get into
ministry, intensify those prayers, don't diminish them,
need them. And Paul understand that there
was a need to pray for Timothy because Timothy was called to
the pastorate. He was saved and called to the
pastorate. And Paul understood that it was
necessary to pray for that young man night and day.
There's nothing good that happens in this church that
doesn't come through your prayers.
Your prayers for Clark, your prayers for me, your prayers for
the other ministries in this church.
Anything that happens of any significance is coming through
your prayers, whether it's corporately by praying together
or praying on a Thursday night prayer or or the Monday or the
other Thursday night prayer that people are holding, or whether
it's individually your prayers. Your prayers are the helps that
holds this place together. It holds it together and the
Lord honors the prayers of the Saints.
Then he goes on in verse 4 and he says greatly desiring to see
you, and that follows up with what he's going to say in
chapter 4, verse 9, when he when he tells him to please
diligently, diligently come quickly because he knows he
doesn't have but a short amount of time to be able to share with
him. And then he says, being mindful
of your tears, that I may be filled with joy when I call to
remembrance the genuine faith that is in you, which dwell
first in your grandmother, Lois and your mother Eunice, and I am
persuaded is in you also. Paul says being mindful of your
tears. He's sitting there in the prison
and he's thinking about Timothy's tears.
We don't know exactly what it was that he's referring to.
He could be referring to the fact that the last time he saw
Timothy, Timothy wept because Timothy may have realized that
this could be the last time that I'm seeing my spiritual father.
This could be the last time he may have been there when Paul
got arrested and was put in prison, and he may have known
that this is going to end in his execution.
The Holy Spirit may have prompted him to know that the
end is near. Or it could be because Timothy
was left in Ephesus to be a pastor of a church where people
were older than he was and was dealing with him like he was a
kid instead of dealing with him like he's a pastor.
The ministry, the persecution, he sees Paul getting arrested
and about to be executed, and he's in the same ministry.
He is testifying to the same name that Paul was testifying to
that's leading to his impending execution.
Maybe that caused Timothy to weep.
We don't really know what caused Timothy to weep.
But Paul says I'm mindful of those tears, that I may be
filled with joy when I call into remembrance your genuine faith,
Timothy, your faith is not hypocritical.
Your faith does not come from surface belief.
Your faith comes from the real, the real source.
Your faith is based upon your knowledge and your belief in
Jesus Christ. That is genuine faith.
It's faith in the face of fear. It's faith in the face of all
things of persecution. It's faith in the face of
danger. That's genuine faith, Faith and
temptation. Timothy, your faith is not
hypocritical because your examples were good.
First, it was in your your grandmother, your grandmother
Lois, she was a faithful woman. And that was passed down to your
mother, Eunice, who was a faithful woman.
They pray for you, Timothy. And now you have genuine faith.
I'm going to tell you something. Most of us, and I know I am,
chief, I am definitely one who are here as a result of the
faithful prayers of someone who pray for us.
Maybe it was your grandmother, maybe it was your grandfather,
maybe it was your father, maybe it was your mother.
For me, it was mother, grandmother, and my older
sister. They desperately prayed for me
to come out of those streets, and maybe somebody did that for
you. So we have evidence that the
fervent prayers of the righteous availeth much, and Timothy
understood that. So if you're praying for
somebody that's not in here yet, if you're praying for somebody
that you want to see, walk in with the Lord before you leave.
Don't stop praying. Regardless of what you see,
regardless of what you see. It's not about what we see.
It's what we believe. We serve a God that is able to
change hearts, to change lives, to change the destiny of men and
women. He is able.
So don't give up your prayers. Don't give up your prayers.
And then he goes on and he says in verse 6, he says, therefore,
I remind you now this is his first.
If you're taking notes, this is his first instruction to
Timothy. He says, therefore, I remind
you, stir up the gift of God that is in you through the
laying on of my hands. Stir up the gift.
That's instruction #1 Timothy, stir up that gift that is in
you. Every one of us have a gift
that's in us that came to us at the time that we got saved.
When the Holy Spirit came to dwell on the inside of us, it
brought gifts. So we all have a gift, but non
use, fear and other things can cause that gift to go dormant.
Circumstances, frustrations, problems in ministry, it can
cause that gift to go dormant. Non use of that gift.
And Paula said, Timothy, stir up that gift.
Fan those embers into a flame. Timothy, don't let your ministry
die. Don't let your faith die.
Don't let your testimony die. Stir it up.
And that's what he's saying to us.
He sent it to me and I know he's saying it to you as well.
Stir up that gift that's in you. God placed something in you.
I don't know what it is, but he placed a gift that's in each and
every one of you who believe. Stir it up.
Don't let it sit and go dormant. Don't let the enemy be able to
celebrate because you are not serving the Lord in the way that
God has called you to do it because your gift went dormant.
Stir it up. Stir it up.
But it's also important that we remember that the gift is in
you. You're not the gift, he said.
The gift that's in you. We're not the gift.
Don't let people think you're the gift.
Don't let people make you believe that you are the gift.
The gift is in you, It's in US. Whatever that gift is, teaching,
praise and worship, AV leadership, whatever the gift
is, administration, it doesn't matter.
The gift is what's in you. So he goes on.
That was necessary just to put out there before we move on then
verse 7 he says for God has not given us a spirit of fear, but
of power and of love and a sound mind that was must have been
necessary to say Paul would not have made that admonition if it
wasn't necessary somewhere along the line.
Timothy must have became timid somewhere along the line.
Somewhere along the line, Timothy must have become pretty
silent about his gift and was not teaching the word of God or
doing what he needed to do with the gift that was placed in him.
Somewhere along the line, something was going on where
Timothy was becoming fearful. Otherwise Paul would not have
made that admonition to him. He would not have brought that
up. And it was right after he said,
stir up the gift. And then he says, for God has
not given us a spirit of fear. So you put those two together,
that tells us that Timothy somewhere along the line became
fearful. Maybe it's because he was seeing
so many people executed around him.
Maybe it's because he was seeing the treatment.
Maybe it was because he was getting threats from Nero.
Maybe he was because the older people that was around him was
just disrespecting him so much that he become fearful.
But whatever the case was, he must have become fearful.
And Paul said God did not give us a spirit of fear.
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
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