Latest / Living Waters of Grace / Calvary Chapel of Westmoreland Sunday Services / Living Waters of Grace 11.04.25
Transcript
- 0:03This is Living Waters of Grace, the teaching ministry of Clark
- 0:08Wofford, senior pastor of Calvary Chapel of Westmoreland,
- 0:12County of Greensburg, PA. Now here's Pastor Clark as he
- 0:16continues teaching through God's Word.
- 0:37There is a thing called apostasy in the Bible where people fall
- 0:41away from the faith and only God knows the heart.
- 0:44But if you're a believer, you might stumble, you might drift a
- 0:49little bit, but you can't fall away.
- 0:52You're going to come back again because the Holy Spirit's going
- 0:54to convict you and draw you back again.
- 0:57Have you ever drifted from the Lord and you couldn't stay away
- 1:00from Him too long? He started getting miserable and
- 1:02depressed and discouraged. Well, that's the work of God's
- 1:05Spirit, reminding you who you belong to.
- 1:08When you really love someone, it's tough to keep your distance
- 1:11for too long, isn't it? Even when there's a bit of
- 1:14confusion, your heart just can't help but reach out to set things
- 1:17straight with them. Have you ever thought about how
- 1:20the vibe between you and God is pretty similar?
- 1:23In today's message, Pastor Clark shares how your soul longs to
- 1:26reconnect with your Creator. Even when you drift away from
- 1:30Jesus, your soul pulls you back toward Him like a magnet.
- 1:34God's love will always bring you back to Him.
- 1:38Now here's Pastor Clark in Acts chapter 15 as he begins his
- 1:42message, the Gospel of Grace. We are in Acts chapter 15, and
- 1:47the title of the message is The Gospel of Grace.
- 1:51We'll be looking at verses one through 34, and I always write a
- 1:55few notes in regard to what the message is about before I preach
- 1:59it so we can put it out there for those who are checking us
- 2:02out on Facebook and YouTube. But I came up with this little
- 2:08overview of what we're going to look at.
- 2:10In the early church, disputes arose regarding the essential
- 2:13beliefs and basis of saving faith.
- 2:16There was the ancient tradition that Jewish believers held onto
- 2:21circumcision according to the custom of Moses.
- 2:24These additional requirements that the Pharisees placed upon
- 2:28the Gentiles for salvation actually were considered heresy
- 2:32or false teaching. Anything that is taught as
- 2:35requirements for saving faith that is not through grace alone,
- 2:39by faith alone and Christ alone is an assault against the
- 2:43finished work of Christ upon the cross of Calvary.
- 2:46Not only was this settled by the early church leaders in
- 2:50Jerusalem, but is also clearly delineated through the teaching
- 2:54of Christ and His Apostles and is also clearly taught
- 2:58throughout the New Testament Scriptures.
- 3:01True believers were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who
- 3:04is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption
- 3:09of the purchase, possession to the praise of His glory.
- 3:12This is the gospel of grace. And so in the early church, they
- 3:17were confronted with this doctrine from the Old Testament
- 3:21that was a sign of the covenant between the children of Abraham
- 3:25and the Jewish nation to follow in God's ways.
- 3:29Circumcision was never set up as a condition for salvation.
- 3:33It was an outward sign of something that was hopefully
- 3:37happening within the hearts of the Jewish believers at the
- 3:40time. But just like any other ritual,
- 3:44and circumcision truly became a ritual, it didn't have much
- 3:48effect on people who had. It didn't do anything to give
- 3:51them new birth or or change their heart.
- 3:54Same thing with water baptism. Some people think that water
- 3:57baptism has power to save. Water baptism is a outward sign
- 4:03of God's grace. Inwardly, baptism doesn't save
- 4:06us. If baptism was a condition for
- 4:09salvation, then the thief on the cross to the right of Jesus
- 4:12couldn't have been saved because he died without baptism, if you
- 4:15remember. So baptism is a sign of
- 4:18obedience, and it's part of what happens when we first become
- 4:21believers. We're to be baptized in the
- 4:23historic church. This was evidence that you were
- 4:26truly in the church when you put your faith in Jesus Christ, and
- 4:30then you followed the Lord and believers.
- 4:32Baptism. You're identifying with his
- 4:34death, his burial, his resurrection.
- 4:37So if you haven't been baptized, I got good news.
- 4:40You can still be baptized, but baptism isn't going to save you.
- 4:44Baptism will though, bless you because it's a sign of your
- 4:48desire to be obedient to what the Scriptures teach regarding
- 4:52the gospel. So I want to look at a couple of
- 4:55verses, the Salaia Foundation before we get into this 15th
- 4:59chapter. And if you look at Acts chapter
- 5:012, and we covered this quite a while ago, Acts chapter 2,
- 5:05verses 36 through 39, this is Peter speaking on the day of
- 5:11Pentecost and how quickly people forget the power and the move of
- 5:17the Holy Spirit on that day of Pentecost.
- 5:22Pentecost was a miraculous outpouring of God's Spirit upon
- 5:27the believers and those who would believe in the early days
- 5:32of the inception of the New Testament church.
- 5:35And Peter is speaking to predominantly people who are
- 5:38coming into town to celebrate the feast of Pentecost and he's
- 5:42giving this message. And he says in verse 36,
- 5:45Therefore let all the House of Israel, of course comprise of
- 5:49many, many Jewish people at the time, Know it surely that God
- 5:53has made this Jesus whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.
- 5:58Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart.
- 6:00In other words, they were convicted by the Holy Spirit.
- 6:03And they said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, men and
- 6:06brethren, what shall we do? And Peter said to them, you must
- 6:11be circumcised, right? No, it's not in there.
- 6:15But the Judaizers added that to it.
- 6:18But this is what Peter said, Repent and let everyone of you
- 6:22be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of
- 6:26sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit for the
- 6:29promises to you and to your children and to all who are far
- 6:33off, as many as the Lord God will call.
- 6:37So it was faith in Jesus Christ, repentance from our sin, and
- 6:42then believing in the work of Jesus Christ and the cross for
- 6:47the forgiveness and the cleansing of our sin through his
- 6:49shed blood. What happens with us as human
- 6:53beings. And I had a conversation with
- 6:56someone about this yesterday. I did a wedding yesterday and
- 6:59the gentleman is from a church called Free Will Baptist Church
- 7:04in California somewhere. And he wasn't aware of the fact
- 7:09that the church taught that believers could lose their
- 7:14salvation. And so he was quite disturbed
- 7:17about that. He said, I don't think I can
- 7:19stay in that church because they're they're teaching us that
- 7:23we can't know that we're saved. In other words, we don't have an
- 7:26assurance of our salvation. There's a a possibility of us
- 7:30losing our salvation. And it tells us in the book of
- 7:35Ephesians, and maybe some of you are here today, think you can
- 7:39lose your salvation. If we could lose our salvation,
- 7:45then what's that say about what Christ has done for us when he
- 7:49said it is finished? We can't add anything to what it
- 7:53is that Christ has done. We think sometimes the
- 7:57performance of our diligence as Christians and our commitment to
- 8:02the teachings of Scripture. The more committed we are, then
- 8:07the more impressed God is with us.
- 8:10God is blessed when we obey the Scriptures and follow Him.
- 8:14But God knows that we still fail him.
- 8:19We still sin. All of us still sin.
- 8:22We're born again once we put our faith and trust in Jesus Christ.
- 8:26Our sins are forgiven. But still we still sin.
- 8:31And that's why it tells us whenever the Holy Spirit
- 8:33convicts US of sin or to ask Him for forgiveness, not for
- 8:38salvation, but for our relationship with Him, to stay
- 8:41close to him, to not hurt him, to not wound him, to not quench
- 8:48His spirit or grieve His spirit. And so we tell the Lord, Lord,
- 8:53forgive me for this. You've convicted me of this
- 8:55attitude, this behavior, this failing, this wrong attitude,
- 9:01this wrong thought. And God Forgives us, He cleanses
- 9:05us, His blood cleanses us. It tells us if we confess our
- 9:08sins, this is to believers in the book of first John, chapter
- 9:12one, verse 9. If we confess our sins, he is
- 9:16faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from
- 9:20all unrighteousness. So we need to continually be
- 9:23cleansed. I, I don't know how many of you
- 9:26take a shower or a bath every day, so I assume most of you
- 9:29did. But if you didn't, we would
- 9:31smell it, right? Well, you just know you got to
- 9:34clean your body. You got to wash your your
- 9:36armpits, whatever you do. You know, that's a good thing to
- 9:39do to, to stay pleasant, to be around other people.
- 9:43But we also need to be cleansed from sin.
- 9:46And sin is a stench to God and it's sin effects one another as
- 9:51brothers and sisters in Christ. If we're living lives as
- 9:55believers and we're not living in a close intimate relationship
- 9:59with the Lord, repenting of sin moment by moment as it comes up
- 10:02in our lives and we're going to begin to become not really great
- 10:06people to be around. We'll begin to be judgmental and
- 10:09critical of everybody else's sin, but we won't ever think
- 10:12about our own issues, our own problems.
- 10:16And so it tells us in Ephesians first a couple chapters.
- 10:20It gets into the subject of the security of the believer, and it
- 10:24tells us that and whom we also trusted, This is the Lord.
- 10:28After we received the word of truth, we were sealed with the
- 10:33Holy Spirit of promise, and it's this permanent mark.
- 10:37It's like a brand that can't be taken off, it can't be erased,
- 10:41it can't be eradicated. We're sealed with the Holy
- 10:43Spirit of promise, which is a guarantee of our inheritance
- 10:48until the day of redemption. It's the guarantee that we have
- 10:53eternal life and we can never lose it.
- 10:56Now, there is a thing called apostasy in the Bible, where
- 10:59people fall away from the faith and only God knows the heart.
- 11:04But if you're a believer, you might stumble, you might drift a
- 11:09little bit, but you can't fall away.
- 11:11You're going to come back again because the Holy Spirit's going
- 11:14to convict you and draw you back again.
- 11:17Have you ever drifted from the Lord and you couldn't stay away
- 11:20from him too long? He started getting miserable and
- 11:22depressed and discouraged. Well, that's the work of God's
- 11:25Spirit, reminding you who you belong to.
- 11:28I love what it tells us in the book of Jude unto him who is
- 11:31able to keep you from falling and to present you faultless
- 11:34before His glory with exceeding joy.
- 11:37And so He's the one that keeps us, right?
- 11:39We don't keep ourselves. The Holy Spirit keeps us, and
- 11:42I'm so grateful for that. If it was up to us, none of us
- 11:47could be saved, could we? And so this is a fight that has
- 11:51occurred since the beginning of time and the garden, where the
- 11:56challenge of Lucifer to Adam and Eve was.
- 11:59Hath not God said, twisting the scriptures to teach something
- 12:05that isn't true. And so we then see Paul saying
- 12:10the same thing that Peter's saying regarding salvation.
- 12:14Then he called for a light, verse 29 of 16, ran in and fell
- 12:18down trembling before Paul and Silas, this is the Philippian
- 12:21jailer. And he brought them out and
- 12:23said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved?
- 12:26And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will
- 12:30be saved, you and your household.
- 12:32Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were
- 12:35in the house. And he took them that same hour
- 12:37of the night and washed their stripes.
- 12:39And immediately he and all his family were baptized.
- 12:42And now when he had brought them into the house, he said food
- 12:45before them. And he rejoiced, having believed
- 12:47in God with all his household. Romans chapter 10 verse 8
- 12:54through 13. The word is near to and in your
- 13:00mouth and in your heart. That is the Word of Faith which
- 13:02we preach, that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus,
- 13:06and believe in your heart that God hath raised him from the
- 13:09dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes
- 13:13unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto
- 13:17salvation. For the scripture says whoever
- 13:19believes on him will not be put to shame.
- 13:23For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek.
- 13:25For the same Lord over all is rich to all who call upon him.
- 13:29For whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.
- 13:34Isn't that awesome? Whoever calls upon you can be
- 13:37here today and maybe not even be a believer yet.
- 13:40And the Holy Spirit's convicting you, and you just right now call
- 13:44upon the name of the Lord. Lord, forgive me, save me for my
- 13:47sin, and you will be immediately transferred from the Kingdom of
- 13:52darkness into the Kingdom of His dear Son, the Lord Jesus.
- 13:55That's how simple it is, so simple.
- 14:00But unfortunately the enemy wants to make it complicated.
- 14:05And so in chapter 15, verse 1, certain men came down from Judea
- 14:10and taught the brethren. These are the Judaizers and we
- 14:13read about them in the pastoral Epistles, especially in
- 14:16Galatians. Unless you are circumcised
- 14:18according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.
- 14:22So they're telling Gentiles that didn't grow up Jewish that they
- 14:26needed to be circumcised in order to be saved.
- 14:29These people are new believers and they're probably like shook
- 14:31up thinking like, well, what do I do?
- 14:34I'm not Jewish and, and I don't know about you being a grown
- 14:37man, but if someone told me I had to be circumcised and I
- 14:40wasn't circumcised yet, I wouldn't be too interested in
- 14:42that, would you guys? Aren't you glad you don't have
- 14:45to be circumcised? Therefore, when Paul and
- 14:49Barnabas had no small dissension and dispute with them, they
- 14:53determined that Paul and Barnabas and certain others of
- 14:55them should go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and elders about
- 14:59this question. So there's this problem in the
- 15:02church. Some people are saying, well,
- 15:03what do we do? What's the truth?
- 15:06There's a problem here. So Peter and Barnabas are
- 15:09getting them calmed down, reinforcing the truth of the
- 15:13gospel, and they're going to go up to Jerusalem and present this
- 15:18issue, this problem that's arisen in the New Testament
- 15:21church at the time of this idea of circumcision being part of
- 15:26what saves someone from their sin.
- 15:29Now, at this time there was this growth of the New Testament
- 15:34church. Church is being planted
- 15:36everywhere. Headquarters was sort of
- 15:38Jerusalem, but there really was never any headquarters in the
- 15:42church on earth. The headquarters of the church
- 15:45is in heaven, and that's God the Father, God the Son, God the
- 15:49Holy Spirit. They are the ones that lead and
- 15:52run the church. We don't need a hierarchy to
- 15:57keep things under control. We don't need a a place in Rome
- 16:02to tell us what's right or what's wrong.
- 16:05We don't need a place in Costa Mesa where Calvary Chapel
- 16:08started. It tells us what's right or
- 16:10wrong. We know this word tells us
- 16:13what's right and wrong right. And so we are accountable to
- 16:17what the Bible teaches. And soon as something is being
- 16:21taught contrary to the Bible, then it all goes S very, very
- 16:24quickly. James was the half brother of
- 16:29Jesus and he was sort of the main guy in the church in
- 16:32Jerusalem, the first among equals if you may.
- 16:36And so he would sort of preside over this council that they were
- 16:40going to have regarding this issue of circumcision.
- 16:44This is a big deal because it's going to wreck the church if it
- 16:46isn't straightened out. Just like if a heresy came in
- 16:49here and someone started teaching something that wasn't
- 16:52biblical, it would wreck the church and scatter the sheep.
- 16:56So being sent on their way by the church, they were sent up by
- 16:59this church in Antioch. They pass through Phoenicia and
- 17:02Samaria describing the conversion of the Gentiles and
- 17:06how they cause great joy to all the brethren.
- 17:09So it was so wonderful how all these people were getting saved
- 17:13miraculously in these church plants that the Paul and
- 17:15Barnabas were establishing. It was like a revival.
- 17:20It was just amazing how this, the preaching of the simple
- 17:23gospel, was convicting people and bringing them to faith in
- 17:28Jesus Christ. There was no rituals.
- 17:30There was no ceremonies. There was no hierarchy of people
- 17:35telling them, yeah, you put your faith in Christ, but then you
- 17:38got to do these three things or four things in order to make
- 17:41sure you're really saved. That wasn't happening.
- 17:44Verse 4. And when they had come to
- 17:46Jerusalem, they were received by the church and the apostles and
- 17:49the elders, and they reported all the things that God had done
- 17:52with them. But some of the sect of the
- 17:54Pharisees, and this is the false cult of the Pharisees, the
- 17:58Judaizers who believe rose up saying it is necessary to
- 18:03circumcise them and to command them to keep the law of Moses.
- 18:08Paul tells us in Galatians and in this book of Galatians was
- 18:12written to communicate these issues and problems that we're
- 18:16continuing in the early stages of the church.
- 18:19And he's very emphatic and what he says here in Galatians
- 18:23chapter one, verse 6 through 9, this ties right into this.
- 18:27Paul says, I marvel that you were turning away so soon from
- 18:31him who called you in the grace of Christ to a different gospel,
- 18:36which is not another. But there are some who trouble
- 18:40you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ.
- 18:43But even if we are an Angel from heaven, preach any other gospel
- 18:47to you than what we have preached you.
- 18:49Let him be accursed, as we have said before.
- 18:52So now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you
- 18:57than what you have received, let him be accursed.
- 19:00That's pretty deep and pretty powerful, what he said there.
- 19:08And so I run into people, you run into people.
- 19:11Unfortunately, the body of Christ on the earth is so
- 19:14fragmented between so many different denominations and so
- 19:18many different opinions and so many different liturgies and
- 19:22rituals and ways of doing things and way of not doing things.
- 19:26But anytime a ritual supersedes the Gospel, it's a heresy.
- 19:32Nothing wrong with the ritual. Some people use candles and
- 19:35incense. Some people use drums and
- 19:37guitars to worship God. There's nothing inherently wrong
- 19:40in any of that. But if we lift any of the ritual
- 19:43above the truth of the Word of God, we've become false
- 19:47teachers. So you have different groups
- 19:50that say you cannot be saved unless you confess your sins to
- 19:57a priest maybe. Or you can't be saved unless you
- 20:01speak in tongues. Or you can't be saved unless
- 20:06you've received the second blessing and called the holiness
- 20:10doctrine. And these people teach that you
- 20:13have this experience, you'll never sin again.
- 20:15I mean, it's craziness, you know?
- 20:17And so you have all these people with these different agendas
- 20:20and, and different ways of adding things to what the
- 20:23Scriptures say. And so as a result, the
- 20:26simplicity of the gospel is corrupted by the gospel being
- 20:31Jesus plus something else. And the gospel is that Christ
- 20:37died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was
- 20:40buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the
- 20:44Scriptures. Jesus said I am the way, I am
- 20:50the truth, I'm the life. No man cometh to the Father but
- 20:53through me. It's not through any church
- 20:56system, it's not through any Sacramento rights, it's not
- 21:02through any kind of works of righteousness, which we have
- 21:05done, but it's according to His mercy.
- 21:08He has saved us. And these are serious issues.
- 21:11We might take it for granted because we are in a Bible church
- 21:15and there's many churches still like this out there.
- 21:17Thank God for that. Bible churches that teach the
- 21:21Bible, not man's ideas of what the Bible says, are teaching
- 21:26things that aren't in the Bible. I'm amazed at how many people
- 21:30look at tradition and I don't care what the tradition could
- 21:33be. It could be the tradition of
- 21:35Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy or Reformation theology.
- 21:39Soon as you make something more superior, a system to the truth
- 21:45of the simplicity of the gospel, which Paul was worried about,
- 21:49the thing that bothered in the most is that our minds would be
- 21:51corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ Jesus.
- 21:57It is enough that Jesus died and that he died for me.
- 22:03That's enough. But all these other things, they
- 22:06make people religious, they make them proud, they make them
- 22:10self-righteous. So this brother said to me, you
- 22:14know, how could they tell me, you know, what's the basis of me
- 22:17losing my salvation? What sin is it that I could lose
- 22:22my salvation? David committed the worst of
- 22:27sins, adultery and murder, and yet because he was a man after
- 22:34God's own heart, the Spirit convicted him, and he repented
- 22:38of his sin, and God still declared him even after his sin,
- 22:42that he was a man after God's own heart.
- 22:45Aren't you glad? Psalm 50 ones in the Bible
- 22:49restore unto me the joy of my salvation.
- 22:53Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast
- 22:56spirit within me. A broken and a contrite heart
- 23:00God will not despise. There's no sin once you become a
- 23:06believer in Jesus Christ that would prevent you from entering
- 23:10into the Kingdom of heaven. Now I don't recommend you sin
- 23:17because you have this security in Christ.
- 23:19If you love Christ, you don't want a sin.
- 23:22If you love Christ, you'll send less.
- 23:26If someone says they're a believer and they decide they no
- 23:29longer want to follow Christ, you pray for them and pray that
- 23:33the Holy Spirit will convict them.
- 23:36God inscribes us in the palm of our hands.
- 23:40He promises He will never leave us or forsake us.
- 23:44He doesn't make us a son or a daughter and then disown us.
- 23:51So these teachings are really very, very dangerous out there.
- 23:57Thank you for listening to this edition of Living Waters of
- 24:00Grace. Pastor Clark is teaching us
- 24:02about the book of Acts in this series.
- 24:05Acts is a powerful and unique part of Scripture, not just
- 24:08because it records the spread of the gospel geographically from
- 24:12Jerusalem to the ends of the earth, but also culturally.
- 24:16Acts shows us how the message of Jesus moved beyond its Jewish
- 24:20roots and began to reach the Gentile world.
- 24:23What started with Peter leading a small group in the upper room
- 24:26became a global movement, with Paul taking the gospel to
- 24:30cities, synagogues, and marketplaces across the Roman
- 24:34Empire. Acts captures this vital
- 24:37transition and reminds us that the good news of Jesus is for
- 24:41all people in every place. May we be inspired to carry that
- 24:46same gospel boldly into our world today.
- 24:50Living Waters of Grace comes to you from Calvary Chapel,
- 24:53Westmoreland. If you're in the Greensburg, PA
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