Latest / Living Waters of Grace / Calvary Chapel of Westmoreland Sunday Services / Living Waters of Grace 02.11.26

Transcript

Living Waters of Grace 02.11.26 · Living Waters of Grace / Calvary Chapel of Westmoreland Sunday Services

0:04
This is Living Waters of Grace, the teaching ministry of Lewis
0:08
Harold, assistant pastor of Calvary Chapel of Westmoreland
0:12
County in Greensburg, PA. Now here's Pastor Lewis as he
0:16
continues teaching through God's Word.
0:37
It's important that we have good works, maintain good works, and
0:42
that maintain good works jumps out at me because he's not
0:45
saying I just want you to do these things every now and then.
0:48
You know, do it when someone's watching.
0:50
Do it when you're trying to impress somebody.
0:52
You know, he's not saying do it when you're trying to deceive
0:55
somebody because there's something you want.
0:58
But he says maintain good works. Every day that we get up, let us
1:04
maintain good works. It's one thing to cross things
1:08
off your bucket list so that you could say been there, done that,
1:12
got the T-shirt, but it's a whole other thing to live a
1:14
lifestyle where you're not just doing things once and moving on,
1:18
but those things become daily habits.
1:21
In his message today, Pastor Lewis encourages you to maintain
1:25
good works. It doesn't mean you fill your
1:28
daily quota and then you're done.
1:30
It doesn't mean you just do good works to put on a show.
1:34
It means good works are a part of who you are in your daily
1:37
life. Now.
1:39
Here's Pastor Lewis in Titus Chapter 3 with today's edition
1:43
of Living Waters of Grace. If you could turn on your
1:46
Bibles, please, to the book of Titus.
1:48
We're going to finish up Titus, and prayerfully we're going to
1:51
move into the Book of Colossians.
1:53
So first we're going to start and finish up the Book of Titus
1:58
going to verse 8. We're going to start at verse 8
2:00
there. OK, So as we finish up the 3rd
2:05
chapter of the book of Titus, we start there verse, we pick it up
2:10
at verse 8 and just simply says this is a faithful saying.
2:14
Now let's see what he's saying is a faithful saying.
2:17
Now he's talked about a number of things.
2:19
He talked about the washing of regeneration, which is one of
2:23
the last things that he talked about.
2:25
And as we mentioned, what the washing and regeneration was
2:28
actually a supernatural act of the Holy Spirit that he actually
2:32
cleanses our, our, our sins. He forgives our sins.
2:35
And not only that, but we are changed from the consequences of
2:40
those sins. And it's a supernatural act.
2:42
It's nothing that is done through labor.
2:45
And we also talked about the fact that there are the, that,
2:49
that Christ and you haven't been justified by grace.
2:53
We are justified by the grace of Jesus Christ just as if we had
2:57
not sinned. So those things are taken off
3:00
the table for us when we are in Christ Jesus.
3:03
We have security in salvation and that we should become heirs
3:08
according to the hope of eternal life.
3:10
And that is the that is the end of our salvation is eternal life
3:15
with Jesus Christ forever and eternity.
3:18
So, but we go from there and we go to verse 8 and he said, now
3:21
this is a faithful saying and these things I want you to to
3:26
constantly, not every now and then, but I want you to
3:29
constantly affirm that those who have believed in God should be
3:37
careful to maintain good works. What a powerful verse there.
3:42
He said to those of us who are in Christ Jesus and who believe
3:46
on Christ Jesus, those who believe in God, that they should
3:49
be careful. That means be intentional to
3:53
live our lives in good works, to be intentional about that to to,
3:59
to take every opportunity that we have to show good works.
4:04
The Bible says we're ambassadors of Jesus Christ.
4:07
We should take every opportunity to be that ambassador to
4:10
represent the Kingdom of God for Jesus Christ here in the earth
4:15
realm, Every opportunity that we get.
4:19
And he said, this is a faithful, a faithful St.
4:21
I want you to constantly affirm this, that it's important that
4:26
we have good works, maintain good works.
4:29
And that maintain good works jumps out at me.
4:31
Because he's not saying I just want you to do these things
4:34
every now and then. You know, do it when someone's
4:36
watching. Do it when you're trying to
4:39
impress somebody. You know, he's not saying do it
4:41
when you're trying to deceive somebody because there's
4:45
something you want. But he says maintain good works
4:51
every day that we get up, let us maintain good works.
4:56
And it works in US. That power works in US.
4:59
And that's what we should pray for.
5:01
Lord, fulfill me, you know, fulfill your word through me
5:05
this day. Let their power work through me
5:08
to produce good works. Maybe a blessing to somebody,
5:14
maybe a blessing to somebody, not just myself.
5:18
I want to be a blessing to somebody else, maintain good
5:22
works. And then he said these things
5:24
are good and profitable to man. As we have always mentioned that
5:29
our ministry is never for us, it's for others.
5:33
The gifts that you have is not for you.
5:36
It's to bless others, particularly in the church, but
5:40
it's also a demonstration to those who are outside of the
5:43
church that demonstrates that God is real, that Jesus is real.
5:51
And we do that through the way that we live our lives, through
5:54
good works. It's profitable.
5:56
It's profitable to men. Now and then he hits him with a
5:59
big one here. Now he talks about what we
6:02
should do, and now he's going to change gears a little bit and
6:05
talk about what we shouldn't do, what we should avoid in the
6:08
church. And you look at verse 9, he
6:10
says, but avoid foolish disputes, genealogy, contentions
6:15
and strivings about the law. Let me just quickly say that
6:19
what Paul is is saying here is that there are some things that
6:24
we have to be mature enough to understand that Satan plants
6:29
certain things in the church or uses people to do certain things
6:33
to cause a division, especially if it's a good work.
6:38
Especially if it's a good work, He's going to send somebody or
6:41
something to try to cause a division in the church, to sow
6:46
seeds of discord, contentions and being dissensions and all
6:51
those kind of things. Those things are not of God.
6:54
Those things were of Satan. The works of the flesh,
6:58
according to Galatians 5, those are works of the flesh.
7:03
And anything that's a work of the flesh causes confusion.
7:05
And we know that God is not the author of confusion, but of
7:08
peace. So he says avoid foolish
7:12
disputes. Those things that we spend time
7:16
talking about that have no eternal value, no eternal value,
7:21
but just arguing about it just for the sake of I want to be
7:26
right. So I'm going to express and I'm
7:28
going to continue to press this point because I want to be
7:32
right. These things cause problems.
7:35
These things cause problems. It can stumble people when we do
7:39
things like that. So he says avoid those things.
7:42
Avoid genealogies. You know, there's, you know,
7:44
they're they're, you know, back at that particular time, there
7:47
were people who would use their their their bloodlines to try to
7:51
distinguish how important they were.
7:55
Well, I'm a Levite and I'm this and I'm on the seat of the
7:58
Abraham, he said. Those things aren't important.
8:00
Forget genealogies. My bloodline is not important.
8:03
I'm born again, so, so the only bloodline I'm concerned about is
8:11
Jesus Christ and his blood that he shed for me.
8:15
That's the only bloodline that's important.
8:18
But he says for, you know, you know, don't stress and don't get
8:21
in these arguments about genealogies.
8:23
It doesn't matter. Those things are not important
8:26
and those things are a matter of pride, contentions and strivings
8:30
about the law, arguing about details about the law, not the
8:35
righteousness or unrighteous other, but just these little
8:36
small details. Now there are times that we can
8:40
get into discussions about the Word of God and we should.
8:44
We should get into discussions about the Word of God as we both
8:47
seek the truth of the Word to rightly divide the Word.
8:51
And in our effort to do that, we can get into discussions.
8:56
But those discussions should not turn into debates and those
8:59
debates should not turn into arguments.
9:01
And those arguments should not turn into contentions.
9:03
And those contentions should not turn into divisions.
9:07
And unfortunately, that's what can happen.
9:11
So he says, you know, avoid those things for they were
9:14
unprofitable. He we already talked about what
9:17
is profitable. What was profitable was good
9:19
works being an example for Jesus Christ.
9:22
That's what is profitable. But he said what's not
9:26
profitable are these foolish disputes and arguing and and
9:30
these contentions he said unprofitable.
9:33
Not only that, but they're also useless.
9:35
What they're used for. They have no eternal value
9:38
whatsoever. And then in verse, then here in
9:40
verse 10, he says, reject the divisive man after the 1st and
9:44
2nd admonition. So after we, you know, after you
9:48
have a, a sit down with someone the first time and you point out
9:55
to them how it's offensive, how they're, they're, they're
9:57
causing a defense or they're causing a, a division by doing
10:01
these things. That's the first time.
10:03
And then the second time you may bring someone else and say,
10:06
listen, you know, we, we really want to bring to your attention
10:09
that you're being divisive, you know, with these arguments and,
10:13
and with these debates and things of that nature.
10:16
Well, he said after the first or second time, if that person
10:19
doesn't turn, if that person doesn't change, if that person
10:22
doesn't see it, he said, reject that person after the first or
10:27
second admonition. And this is the reason why Look
10:32
at what it says in verse 11. Knowing that such a person is
10:36
warped, that means they have they're, they're perverted,
10:39
they're twisted, The enemy has deceived them and they've taken
10:44
the word of God and they're perverting it.
10:46
They're twisting it. They're taking it to be
10:49
something that is not truth. That person is warped, they're
10:54
twisted, they're perverted and sinning.
10:57
It's a sin to do what they're doing because they're, they're
11:00
not just doing it because they're looking for truth,
11:02
They're doing it because they just want to be adversarial.
11:08
And he said that is sinful, he said, being self condemned.
11:13
And then he's basically saying that this is a person that you
11:16
just have to reject. Now, to reject a person like
11:19
that doesn't necessarily mean that you never minister to that
11:22
person again. But there needs to be some
11:26
church discipline where that person knows you cannot be this
11:31
kind of of a problem in the congregation.
11:35
You cannot be this kind of problem in the congregation.
11:38
So you treat that person as an infidel almost you treat them as
11:41
someone who's not even in the faith and you minister to that
11:43
person. You continue to show love to
11:45
that person. You continue to deal with that
11:48
person like you would any other unbeliever.
11:54
And then in verse 12, he says when I sin that he's he's
11:57
finishing up this this portion of it finished finishing up the
12:00
book of Titus. He says now when I send Art
12:03
Artemis to you or to Caicus, be diligent to come to me at
12:08
Necropolis. Paul was in the accomplice
12:10
because this is coming around the time of winter.
12:13
In fact, he even says here for have decided to spend the winter
12:16
there and that's pretty common because Paul didn't want to
12:20
travel by sea in the winter because it was dangerous.
12:24
So he would always find some place to winter.
12:26
That means some place that he would be and to remain over the
12:29
course of the winter until the the seasons change and it's more
12:33
safe. It's a lot more safer to travel
12:35
over the sea so he can continue his ministry.
12:38
So he said send them when you send that person, send them to
12:40
an accomplice, because that's where I'm going to be for the
12:43
winter. And then he said send Zenus the
12:45
lawyer. Wow, one of the rare times you
12:49
hear about somebody wanting a lawyer to fellowship like this
12:54
in the word of God, he says send that lawyer Apollos on the
12:58
journey with haste that they may lack nothing.
13:04
Now a lot of the time now Paul understands that there are
13:08
obviously, you know, they're just like there's anything else.
13:11
You know, there's good and there's bad, there's evil,
13:13
there's wicked and there's righteous just like anything
13:16
else. All obviously all lawyers are
13:18
not bad. We know that I was actually
13:20
considering being a lawyer at one particular time.
13:23
All lawyers are not bad. Well, Paul is but what what we
13:26
see is that there can always be a life changing experience in
13:32
Jesus Christ through the through the gospel.
13:35
All accountants not bad, but yet they considered those who were
13:39
the tax collectors, you know, they were bad.
13:43
They considered them to be bad people, but they changed.
13:46
Matthew changed and we definitely always want to
13:50
consider the life changing power of God in anybody's life,
13:56
regardless of what they do. We always want to consider that.
14:00
So Paul says sent a lawyer. Maybe this is a person at one
14:03
particular time was against the gospel, but now maybe they are a
14:09
help to Paul in the gospel. There are many people that have
14:12
been like that for Paul in his life.
14:15
There are people who will be like that for yourself and he
14:17
said then Apollo's on their journey with haste that they may
14:21
lack nothing and let verse 14 and let our people also learn to
14:28
maintain good works and to meet urgent needs that they may be
14:33
not that they may not be unfruitful.
14:37
So he's saying when they leave you make sure that they have
14:40
everything they need. That's a good word.
14:43
Now remember who he's talking to.
14:45
He's talking to the Christians who were very self-centered
14:49
people who were a Pagan nation and they really didn't care
14:54
anything about anybody else but their own satisfaction.
14:58
But now that they're in Christ Jesus, Paul is saying this is a
15:02
way of showing good works. Make sure when they leave they
15:06
have everything they need, everything they need.
15:10
Be hospitable to them. What a word to the church today.
15:14
Be hospitable to people, to bless people, to meet needs of
15:20
people. Isn't that the church to meet
15:23
the needs of people and however it is that they can be done,
15:27
Meet the needs. Sometimes meeting needs of
15:30
people could be financial. Sometimes it could just be
15:32
labor. Sometimes meeting the need of
15:34
people could just be a phone call, a conversation, somebody
15:38
who just need to talk to somebody got to relay somebody
15:43
on your mind and you call that person and say, oh, can't
15:47
believe you called. I was just thinking about you
15:50
and there's so many things on my mind, on my heart.
15:53
And God sends you to call that person and you become a blessing
15:57
to that person because you become that listening ear.
16:01
You become sometimes not even necessarily say anything, but
16:04
just to listen to be a blessing to someone who needs it.
16:10
So Paul said, make sure you meet the urgent needs that they may
16:15
not be that you may not be unfruitful.
16:19
He's trying to teach a a city who was rooted in paganism,
16:24
rooted in unrighteousness and morality, and he's now saying I
16:30
want you. I don't want you to be
16:32
unfruitful. Meet the needs of others.
16:35
God is working in your life. What a blessing when we see
16:38
those kind of things happen, those terms.
16:41
And then in verse 15, it says all who, all who were with me
16:45
greet you, greet those who love us in the faith.
16:50
Grace be with you all. Amen.
16:54
So we finished the book of Titus and it says it's, it's important
16:58
that we understand that this book of Titus is one of the
17:01
three epistles, the, the pastoral epistles.
17:05
And, and we, we didn't do it in order because it would be first
17:08
Timothy, Titus and then second Timothy.
17:11
That would be the correct order that they were actually written.
17:15
Second Timothy was the book that was written right before Paul
17:19
was executed. But Second Timothy, this letter
17:22
to this young brother, this young pastor who Paul also
17:27
considered to be a son, this young man, they received him and
17:33
Timothy received awesome instruction from Paul, who loved
17:38
them and loved the churches that they were pastoring.
17:43
What a blessing that is to see the heart of Paul poured out in
17:47
these passages. But this is actually the Lord
17:50
speaking through Paul not only to them, but also to us, the
17:55
Lord speaking. What a blessing it is to be to
17:56
have these to be able to read. So we want to know about how the
18:00
New Testament church works. We want to go to first, second
18:05
Timothy, and Titus. This is Paul's message to the
18:09
New Testament church, how it works, the function of it, the
18:13
order of it, all of those things are there.
18:16
So now we move into Colossians and I and I and I have to say
18:21
that I, I thought about going right to the next book, thought
18:24
about going right to the next book, which would have been
18:26
Philemon if I would have went in that in that order, but I, I, I
18:30
was just not led to go that direction.
18:33
Colossians was a book that kept coming into my heart to study
18:38
and I'm so glad that I did. So if you go over to the book of
18:42
Colossians and in chapter 1, just looking at the beginning of
18:48
it, I just want to mention just a couple of things.
18:49
First of all, Colossi, this book, this letter to the
18:53
Colossians is actually the city of Colossae, which is a Roman
18:56
city in the Asia minus about it's about 100 miles east of
19:00
Ephesus is where it's located. It's a small city and it's one
19:04
of the three neighboring cities. Beside that is Laodicea, which
19:08
we heard about from the the Book of Revelations.
19:11
And also Hierapolis is one of the other cities.
19:15
Colossi was a city who was steep at one time and very prosperous
19:21
in trade. Then there was an earthquake
19:24
that hit and when that hit it devastated the city.
19:27
They lost a lot of people and they also lost a lot of industry
19:30
that particular time. And that earthquake actually hit
19:33
after they received Paul's letter.
19:37
Paul had never been to Colossi. He didn't establish the church
19:41
in Colossae, and we'll talk about who did in a minute.
19:44
But Paul didn't establish that church.
19:45
But yet Paul still wrote this letter to Colossae.
19:49
And he wrote this letter with such love and with such care and
19:53
with such detail that you would think it was another church that
19:57
he founded. But that's the love that Paul
19:59
had for all believers. All believers, and we have to
20:04
keep in mind we're talking about a man who used to kill
20:06
Christians, who used to lock Christians up.
20:09
If you ever want to just know the life changing power of the
20:12
gospel, look at Paul. And then after you look at Paul,
20:15
look at me and then like probably look at ourselves,
20:19
right? That's the power of the life
20:21
changing gospel. So Paul writes this letter to a
20:25
place he's never been to a bunch of people he's never ever met.
20:30
But I want you to pay attention to the love and the care and the
20:34
detail of it. So we start with verse one there
20:37
in chapter 1. He says Paul, an apostle of
20:39
Jesus Christ by the will of God, and Timothy our brother.
20:43
What jumped out at me immediately is that he talked
20:47
about Timothy, our brother. Now, during this time that Paul
20:50
wrote this letter, he was actually in, he was in jail, he
20:54
was under house arrest in Rome when he wrote this particular
20:57
letter. And you'll see a lot of
20:59
similarities to Colossians and Ephesians, and we'll be
21:02
referencing that quite a bit as we go through this letter.
21:06
But he mentions Timothy as being with him.
21:09
Now, Timothy wasn't in jail with him, but Timothy was there to
21:11
assist him and to help him. Timothy was probably the one who
21:14
scribed this letter as Paul was giving his words to it.
21:19
And he says Timothy, our brother, well, we know that he
21:22
called Timothy his son, But here he's just expressing the fact or
21:26
stressing the fact that Timothy is a brother in the faith, just
21:29
like he's a son of faith. The other thing I also want to
21:32
mention is the fact that he calls Jesus.
21:34
He he mentions Jesus Christ and he calls that together.
21:37
Now pretty much all the epistles in his introductory, he mentions
21:41
the name Jesus Christ. But if you were to just think
21:43
about or go back through like the four gospels, you won't see
21:49
those two names together. We know that Jesus is named me.
21:53
You know, that means, you know, save our people.
21:55
And we know that Christ is actually his office.
21:57
I mean, that's his position of authority.
22:00
He is the Christ. He's the Messiah, the Son of the
22:04
living God. But you won't see those two
22:06
together very much in the gospels.
22:09
Only about 8 times you may see those things together.
22:12
Peter was one who mentions that when he says who, You know who?
22:16
Who am I? Who does man say I am?
22:18
Peter said you, you're the Christ.
22:20
You're the Son of the living God, but you don't see that that
22:23
often in the Gospels. And that's why Jesus was so
22:27
quick to say, oh, flesh and blood didn't reveal that to you,
22:31
but my father who was in heaven, because Jesus didn't even reveal
22:35
himself as that as much in the Gospels.
22:38
So he knew that it had to be spiritually reviewed or
22:42
spiritually revealed to him. But here you see these names
22:46
together, Jesus Christ, and you'll see that together in
22:49
most, most of the epistles because by this time those who
22:53
are teaching and preaching the gospel are presenting Jesus as
22:58
the Messiah. And when we preach and teach
23:01
Jesus, we should do it as Jesus Christ, the Messiah, the true
23:06
God, the the Son of God, God in the flesh.
23:10
And then in verse 2, he says to the Saints and faithful brethren
23:13
in Christ who are in Colossae, grace to you and peace from God
23:18
our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ, we give thanks.
23:22
And that's another thing you're going to see quite often
23:25
throughout this letter, the giving of thanks and talking
23:29
about thanks. And we talked about it before
23:32
that. That's something that we should
23:33
probably be more intentional about doing in our lives is
23:36
giving thanks to God, you know, and our prayers.
23:39
We should always take time to give thanks to God.
23:43
You know, we, we always can go into talking about a laundry
23:46
list of things that we need. And I sure need a lot of things.
23:49
I need God to do a lot of things in my life as well.
23:51
But we should always remember to thank Him for the things that He
23:54
has done. This has been Living Waters of
23:59
Grace, a ministry of Pastor Lewis Harrell of Calvary Chapel,
24:03
Westmoreland. Today's message has been on the
24:06
book of Titus. This book is a master class in
24:09
how Christians should live in modern culture.
24:12
Titus was ministering to the people of Crete, an island off
24:15
the coast of Greece, but he was facing many challenges.
24:19
The Cretans who came to know Jesus seemed to assimilate Jesus
24:23
into their existing culture instead of allowing themselves
24:27
to be transformed by the Holy Spirit inside of them.
24:31
Others were fully devoting themselves to Jesus but shutting
24:35
themselves off from the world around them.
24:38
The Apostle Paul encourages Titus to help his audience find
24:42
a middle ground where they can live in this world while still
24:46
following a different way of life in Jesus.
24:49
If you would like to learn more about what it means to
24:52
faithfully follow the teachings of Christ in a world full of
24:55
darkness, we'd love to get connected with you in person.
24:59
If you are in Greensburg, PA, we'd love to invite you to join
25:04
us at Calvary Chapel Westmoreland.
25:07
We need every Sunday at 10:30 AM at 400 E Pittsburgh St.
25:12
Ste. 6B. Also, if you visit us at
25:16
calvarychapelonline.com, you'll find links to our mobile app,
25:21
our giving page, and our contact form where you can leave a
25:25
prayer request if you have one. Before we go off the air for
25:29
today, we ask you to invite someone to tune in next time
25:33
right here on Grace FM 91.7 or streaming online at Grace Radio
25:40
dot FM. Word of mouth is the best way to
25:43
spread the good news of the Gospel with those who are hungry
25:47
to hear. Until next time, this has been
25:50
another edition of Living Waters of Grace.