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Living Waters of Grace 12.11.25 · Living Waters of Grace / Calvary Chapel of Westmoreland Sunday Services

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This is Living Waters of Grace, the teaching ministry of Clark
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Wofford, senior pastor of Calvary Chapel of Westmoreland,
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County of Greensburg, PA. Now here's Pastor Clark as he
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continues teaching through God's Word.
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In life, sometimes you have decisions you're going to make
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about some type of plan you might have.
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It's always good to run your plans past the Lord and ask Him
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what he thinks you should do. Wait on the Lord and pray and
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ask him what you should do. A lot of times we don't think
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that way. We just respond out of our
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emotion or our mood or human reasoning, and we just do what
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we think we're going to do. Most of us have been part of a
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team at some point. Whether it was at work on a
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sports team or as a member of a music group, we work together
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for the good of the whole. Sometimes we took constructive
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criticism or had to listen to other people's opinions.
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Today, Pastor Clark reminds you that this is especially helpful
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to remember in your relationship with Jesus.
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Consult him on everything. He's a perfect leader and
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teammate. Why would you want to make
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decisions apart from him now? Here's Pastor Clark in Acts
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Chapter 27 with today's edition of Living Waters of Grace.
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Paul is going to Rome. He's wanted to go to Rome pretty
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much his whole ministry life, and it just seemed like there
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was always things in the way that prevented him from getting
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there. And so now he's going to have to
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take a long voyage and a couple ships and have his life risked
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and we're going to read about that.
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Now. The one thing to I think to
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consider this voyage ends up in shipwreck.
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In shipwreck, I've never been. I've been at sea and I've been
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in boats and that kind of stuff, but I've never been shipwrecked.
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It's a very terrifying thing to experience if the boat is
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starting to take on water and it starts to go down and you might
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die, right? But I've been shipwrecked in my
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life personally, through circumstances of my own doing
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and sin and ruining my life when I was a younger man doing things
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that cause consequences to happen in my life.
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And then I've also been in situations, even as a Christian,
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where God has allowed me to go through tough times and
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challenging times and life threatening times and tragic
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times that teach me how to depend more on Him and how to
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surrender to him and how to yield to Him and how to get out
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of the way so that he can have His way.
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So if you're here today, you might be in a a place of feeling
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like there's no hope. Or maybe you're sensing that
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there is hope, but you're wondering when that hope might
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appear for you. You're feeling like your life's
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wrecked. Or maybe you've made decisions.
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Maybe there's relationships that are unreconcilable.
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Maybe there's health issues you're dealing with that are
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just very, very challenging. Maybe there's issues with
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children or fractured friendships that you wish
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weren't fractured. There could be all kind of stuff
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that you personally are dealing with today.
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And I'm here to tell you as we study this chapter, that you're
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not alone, that everyone who lives life goes through times of
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challenge and adversity and difficulty.
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It's not uncommon. It's normal.
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And the apostle Paul, who walked totally with the Lord, was
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totally committed to the Lord, also went through these things.
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Just because you're a Christian doesn't mean you escape
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adversity or challenges or difficulty when you're a
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Christian. God uses these things, and he
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even allows warfare and the enemy at times to attack us in
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order that we might draw closer to the Lord.
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And sometimes when you're going through something, you want to
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say, well, God, if you really care about me, if you really
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love me, why are you putting me through this?
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But God always has a reason in time to get us through whatever
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it is we're getting through to begin to understand one thing
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for sure. I can't live life without the
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help of the Lord and neither can you.
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Lord speak to us today about how we can make application and
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parallel what Paul went through in our own personal life today.
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And perhaps what it is that we're facing, what it is we're
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dealing with, the tragedies we've been through, the things
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we're trying to overcome. God show us how Paul depended
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upon you and we ask all these things in Jesus name, Amen.
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First one. And when it was decided that
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they we should sail to Italy, they delivered Paul and some
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other prisoners to one named Julius, a centurion of the
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Augustan Regiment. So this Julius is a very
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powerful leader. He's going to watch over the
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prisoners, especially Paul and those who had gone with him in
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order to make sure that they make the journey and get the
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room. So entering a ship of the Adrum
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ATM, we put the sea meaning to sail along the coast of Asia.
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So if you look at a map, they're coming out of the Bible lands
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and they're coming up the coast up toward Greece to come around.
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And this group of people that went with Paul that mentions a
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couple names here. First of all, Luke is giving the
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declaration here. What happened in this chapter?
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And so he was with Paul and then Aristocas, a Macedonian of
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Thessalonica, was with us. This is another brother in the
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Lord. It also had travelled with Paul
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and Paul was allowed to have some help.
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Luke was his physician, so he was there to minister to Paul's
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health issues. And Aristarchus was a brother
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who was also allowed to come on. The ship basically took the
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place of a slave, but also prisoner that he might be with
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Paul. And so they're heading up the
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coast of Macedonian of Thessalonica was with us.
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And the next day we landed at Sidon.
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And Julius treated Paul kindly and gave him liberty to go to
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his friends and receive care. So Paul had a lot of freedom
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because of his testimony. He wasn't a prisoner because of
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doing something like a crime of murder.
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Like most of the prisoners on this boat, we're going to be
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delivered to Rome to be killed basically for their crimes.
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Paul was a political prisoner and so Julius gave him some
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freedom. So Paul stopped here at Sidon,
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doesn't tell us who we saw, but he was with different people,
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friends that knew him and they ministered to him.
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And Julius treated Paul kindly and gave him liberty to go to
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his friends and receive care. And when he put the sea from
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there, we sailed under the shelter of Cyprus.
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Now Cypress is going up there near the coast of Greece,
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beautiful place in the world because the winds were contrary.
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And when we had sailed over the sea, which is off Cilicia and
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Pamphylia, we came to Mara, city of Lycia.
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Now, if you took the time and looked on the Bible map, you
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just see how they're gradually moving through these waters to
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head up to Rome. They are the centurion found an
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Alexandrian ship sailing to Italy and he put us on board.
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And so now there's this opportunity to get going faster.
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It's a bigger ship, about 146 feet long, about 36 feet wide
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that covered, carried grain from Egypt and Egypt brought food to
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Rome. So they were always given
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preference on the seas and access to the harbors in Italy.
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And so all this stuff is on water, what they're doing
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dealing with here. And it says when we had sailed
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slowly many days, we arrived with difficulty off sign us, the
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wind not pretty permitting us to proceed.
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We sailed under the shelter of Creek off Saloma, passing it
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with difficulty. We came to place called Fair
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Haven near the city of Lacia. So they're going up the coast
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past Lebanon. Now they're off the coast of
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Greece and Crete, and they're trying to find a place that they
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can be for the storms to be able to not destroy them.
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And Fair Havens is, is is one-on-one side of Crete there.
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So now when much time had been spent and sailing was now
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dangerous because of the fast. And this fast relates to Yom
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Kippur, the Day of Atonement, October, the Jewish feast of
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fasting isn't good to be traveling in the waters past
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October and going into the winter time.
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So that was 1 issue there that gave us the insight of when this
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was occurring and Paul's giving them his opinion though his
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sense, his warning. He says in verse 10 men, I
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perceive that this voyage will end with disaster and much loss
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not only of the cargo and ship but also our lives.
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So in life, sometimes you have decisions you're going to make
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about some type of plan you might have.
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It's always good to run your plans past the Lord and ask Him
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what He thinks you should do. Wait on the Lord and pray and
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ask Him what you should do. A lot of times we don't think
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that way. We just respond out of our
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emotion or our mood or human reasoning and we just do what we
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think we're going to do. But that's not how God's created
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us to live. And we're learning to depend on
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the Lord. We don't immediately depend on
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the Lord when we get saved. We still have a lot of self
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pride, whatever we think. We know how to handle things and
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what to do and all that kind of stuff.
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And it's interesting when you tell someone that cares about
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you as a deep Christian, what your plans are, what you're
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going to do. A wise Christian would say,
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well, have you prayed about that?
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Have you asked the Lord what he might want you to do?
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And sometimes you get a shock look from the person.
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Well, well, no, I, I didn't do that.
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Well, it's always good to ask God what his thoughts are and if
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there's any reason why you shouldn't do what it is you're
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planning to do. You want the Lord to reveal it
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to you. You want him to speak to you so
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that you would not bypass his perfect will for your life.
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Paul, knowing the Lord and walking deeply with the Lord,
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had experience in the sea. In Second Corinthians Chapter
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11, it says he was shipwrecked 3 times.
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So this guy knows what he's talking about.
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He can tell by the winds and what's happening in the
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environment and the seas that this is not a good plan to
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proceed. And so he's giving them his
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insight and he's telling them if you're going to ruin everything,
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you're going to lose your cargo and risk all of our lives.
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Verse 11 Nevertheless, the centurion was more persuaded by
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the helmsman, the captain of the ship and the owner of the ship
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than by the things spoken by Paul.
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And because the harbor was not suitable to winter in, the
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majority advises set sail from there.
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Also, if by any means they could reach Phoenix, a harbor of Crete
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opening toward the southwest and northwest and winter there.
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So that would have been more in the direction of Italy.
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It was only about 40 miles from this point to Phoenix and they
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thought they could make it because they had already
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travelled all these miles and and made it thus far.
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This particular port, this Fair Haven was a real small community
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and the people that ran the ship, the crew, they didn't want
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to be there over winter because it was a boring place, wasn't
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much to do. They wanted to go to a more
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happening place that they'd have entertainment, do whatever crazy
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stuff they wanted to do. So that was one of the reasons
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they wanted to get out of that Fair Haven harboring and go to
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this Phoenix place winter there. So in verse 13, when the South
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wind blew softly, supposing that they had obtained their desire
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putting out the sea, they sailed close by Creek.
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So it started out good the journey, the wind was perfect,
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nice sail looked like it was going to be smooth ride.
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I'm sure the captain of the ship looked at Paul and said, you
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know, you're wrong. I'm right kind of thing, but not
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long after verse 14, a temptress head when a rose called your
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Clyde. And this is translated the
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typhoon or a severe northeasterly storm.
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If you've ever been to the shore on land and you have a vacation
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and all of a sudden the winds start coming up and it gets to
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the temperatures drop and the waves start looking really crazy
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and the lifeguards won't let you in the in the water.
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That's a discouraging time because northeasters could last
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a week and your whole vacation and all the money is spent to be
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at the beach. You know, you can't go in the
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water. You can go up maybe to your
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knees and that's it. So this is what's happening
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here. This is a very, very serious
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storm and it's scary. Someone said it's like they were
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in this really cool boat and this floating and the sun and
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the gentle breeze and all of a sudden they're like a toothpick
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in the mid midst of 40 foot swells, that this is
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unbelievable. So the ship was caught and it
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could not head into the wind. So we let her drive.
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So they didn't have the ability to steer this boat.
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Now this boat was taken by the wind and being pushed down more
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toward the coast of Africa instead of the shores of Italy.
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And they couldn't even really tell where they were going.
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And running under the shelter of an island called Claudia, we
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secured the skiff with difficulty.
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They're trying to stabilize us, this huge vessel, and when they
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had stake taken it on board, they use cables.
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So they're pulling the the lifeboat out of the water to
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skiff and getting it into the big boat because it would start
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smashing the other boat. And they undergirded the ship
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and with these cables to sort of wrap it around to prevent it
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from coming apart because of the waves less they should run
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aground on the sands. They struck sail and were so
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driven and because we were exceedingly Tempest toss the
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next day they lighten the ship. So they're starting to dump
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stuff out of the boat. The cargo, which was worth a lot
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of money, they had to begin to get rid of it because of the
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weight. They're they're lightning the
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ship. On the third day we threw the
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ship's tackle overboard with our own hands.
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So not any are they getting rid of the grain.
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But now they're getting rid of any kind of physical bedding or
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any kind of equipment. It isn't necessary right now.
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And they're getting rid of all of it.
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It says in verse 20 now when neither sun nor stars appeared
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for many days and those small Tempest beat on us all hope that
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we would be saved was finally given up.
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Have you ever been in a situation where you're going
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through something that you feel that there's no hope left and
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they're ready to give up? I'm sure you have been.
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I know I have been. There doesn't seem to be any
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answer, any reason for why it is what it is you're going through.
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And it's a really time of testing your faith and how well
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you know God because God will never fail you.
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He promises us throughout the Scriptures, Jesus never fails.
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Our faith fails. We get our eyes off of the Lord,
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We get our minds and our hearts out of the word of God, and then
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all of a sudden we have nothing to stand on, do we?
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There's no stability. Everything's uncertain.
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Everything's up in the air and they're at a point right now
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that they are basically hopeless and they're giving up.
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I don't know where you are today, but I'm here to tell you
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and encourage you. Don't give up no matter what.
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Get close to God. He's ready to do something.
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You get close to Him, He'll reveal himself to you in ways
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that you never even knew Him. I hate to say it, but we're all
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at least I'll say myself, knuckleheads.
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I'm going to say that about you. But God has to many times cause
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stuff to happen in order to get our attention, to show us like
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we're missing things. We're not seeing things the way
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he wants us to. We're maybe not living the way
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he wants us to live. He's he loves us so much that
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he's going to do everything he can sometimes.
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And he starts gradually many times to get your attention.
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And then if you don't listen, then maybe things get a little
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bit more challenging, more difficult.
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But here's Paul in this situation.
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He's a human being like the rest of them.
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I'm sure he's freaking out too, in his ways.
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A lot of people are seasick. They can't even think about
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eating anything. But Paul begins to speak verse
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21. But after long abstinence from
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food, then Paul stood in the midst of them and said, Men, you
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should have listened to me and not have sailed from Crete and
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incurred this disaster and loss. Has then anybody ever told you
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after you made a decision and everything fell apart?
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I told you so. You shouldn't have done that.
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Always Monday morning quarterbacks always telling you
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how you should have handled it differently.
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Well, that's the last thing you want to hear at that point in
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time because, like, you already made the decision and
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everything's messed up. You don't need to tell me that.
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I already know I've messed up, right?
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So he says. And now I urge you in verse 22
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to take heart, for there will be no loss of life among you, but
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only of the ship. Now they must.
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Some of them had to think he was nuts.
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The ship is going everywhere and it is like, no way, how are we
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not going to die? But Paul during this journey was
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also sharing the gospel. And I'm sure there was people on
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the ship at that time because of what was happening, said, hey,
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Paul, what do I need to do to be saved?
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Is there an afterlife? The other is, let me tell you
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about it. Let me tell you this life's real
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short. You want to put your trust in
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Jesus because one day you're going to leave this world and
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you want to be where he is. You don't want to be in hell.
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You want to be in heaven with the Lord.
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And he's made a way because of what Jesus did on the cross to
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die for us and to forgive us of our sins, to cleanse us, forgive
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us, give us new life. So there is probably a lot of
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deathbed conversions here. I always like visiting hospitals
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when someone's getting ready to die and they still have
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consciousness and their loved ones ask the pastor to go and
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talk to the person who's in the bed.
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The person in the bed knows that it's coming down the home
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stretch and they're going to pass from this life.
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And that's when you begin to tell them about the gospel.
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And I'm amazed. And how many people are
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definitely prepared at that point to hear it and to believe
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it and to depend on the Lord so they can go into heaven?
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Isn't that wonderful? God in his mercy, He does that.
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And occasionally someone will say anything.
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You don't know if they believed or didn't, but you know, you,
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you, you tell them the truth and you trust the Holy Spirit to do
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what only He can do. And so Paul's telling them
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there's not going to be any loss of life.
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And this is amazing here, verse 23.
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Now we know. And Acts 23 verse 11, Paul was
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in jail and he wasn't sure if he was going to be able to get the
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Rome. Jesus showed up personally and
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spoke to Paul and told him that you're going to get the Rome,
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don't worry about it, I'm going to get you there.
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So Paul tucked that down in his heart, a promise from God to
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hold on to. But now he's got another
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spiritual encounter. For there stood by me this night
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an Angel of the of the God to whom I belong and whom I serve,
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saying, do not be afraid, Paul, you must be brought before
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Caesar. And indeed God has granted you
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all those who sail with you. So the Angel reminded Paul,
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don't you remember? Jesus told you you're going to
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get the roam. Paul's faith, I'm sure wasn't
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shipwrecked, but he's, you know, he's human.
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Like, you know this stuff. You know what's going to happen
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here? He needed the confirmation from
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the Lord that it was going to be OK and they were going to get
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through it. Don't be afraid, Paul.
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So Paul's being admonished not to be afraid.
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And fear is a horrible thing, isn't it?
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Fear can really mess you up. It can cause you to just freak
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out. It can cause you to be hopeless.
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It can cause you to hear stupid things in your head that are
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lies from the devil. It can.
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It can cause people to do horrible things.
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Fear. God hasn't given us a spirit of
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fear, the Bible says, but a power and of love and of a sound
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mind. When we have fear, we have to
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call it out as a lie because God does not give us that spirit,
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does He? And we have to acknowledge that
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and ask the Lord to replace the thoughts that we have that are
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causing the fear with the things that He tells us to think upon.
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Paul, think on these things, whichever things are pure,
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lovely, just, and a good report. That's a discipline.
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It's real easy to get down the fear track and to stay on that,
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right? No, I'm not going to fear, I'm
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not going to live with this in my head.
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Lord, take this out. Help me.
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Ask the Lord to help you. He will stabilize my thoughts.
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God give me truth to think on and not lies.
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Therefore take heart men. And He says that to us today.
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Take heart brothers and sisters, for I believe God that it will
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be just as it was as he told me. I believe God.
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Who do you believe in your life? You believe Fox News, CNN, Wall
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Street? Or do you believe the God of
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heaven, the creator of the universe?
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Everything in your life, in my life, is designed by God to
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cause our faith to increase, not to decrease.
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Adversity and trial and heartache and tragedy are
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allowed in our lives to deepen us, not to destroy us.
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If we believe God, no matter what, we're going to get
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through. Amen.
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If we don't believe God, it is hopeless.
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There is no answer apart from God Himself.
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So God tests us. And in every situation, He knows
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where you're at. Clark needs more faith.
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He needs to go deeper with me, and I'm going to allow this to
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occur so that he's on his face crying out to me like he never
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cried out to me before. Someone told me this morning
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they were moments from death. Kidney operating at 2%.
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A Christian told his brother that God will do whatever he has
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to do to get us back with him. It will allow adversity.
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It will allow us to get smacked around in life.
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It will allow all kinds of things to happen to us that we
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don't like and we don't think it's fair.
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Until finally we say, I give up Lord.
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We're so glad you joined us today on this edition of Living
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Waters of Grace. Pastor Clark is teaching through
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the Book of Acts, which is the only book that chronicles the
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history of the early church immediately after Jesus's
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ascension. It gives us a front row seat to
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how the Gospel began to move outwards, starting in Jerusalem
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and reaching into the heart of the Roman Empire.
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In just three decades, a small group of frightened ordinary
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believers became a bold, spirit empowered movement that
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transformed the known world. Acts is not just a history
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lesson. It's a reminder of what God can
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do when His people are surrendered, obedient and filled
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with the Holy Spirit. Their perseverance still
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inspires us today. May we follow their example and
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live faithfully for Christ in our own time.
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We hope today's message encouraged you.
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Living Waters of Grace is a ministry of Calvary Chapel,
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Westmoreland. If you're in the Greensburg, PA
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area, we'd love to have you join us in person.
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Our Sunday service begins at 10:30 AM at 400 E Pittsburgh St.
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Unit 6B. Be sure to visit
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calvarychapelonline.com to confirm times and learn more.
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If you are in the Greensburg area, you can listen to Grace FM
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on the new 91.7 frequency. Please pray about supporting
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this outreach. Gifts can be sent to Grace FMPO
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Box 716, Greensburg, PA 15601. Stay connected through Facebook,
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YouTube, or our Calvary Chapel Westmoreland app.
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Join our e-mail list, submit prayer requests, and give online
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all at calvarychapelonline.com. Thank you for tuning in and
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spending this time in God's Word.
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Be sure to join us again for Living Waters of Grace.