Latest / Living Waters of Grace / Calvary Chapel of Westmoreland Sunday Services / Living Waters of Grace March 6, 2026
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's always this group of people, thank God, since the
- 0:40beginning of time, throughout the Old Testament, when Israel
- 0:44rank and file were turning their backs toward God, there was a
- 0:48remnant, always right, that moved toward God, that the Lord
- 0:52could work through, that he could be glorified in the midst
- 0:56of. And in this church, Sardis, in
- 0:59the midst of its struggle and floundering, there was people in
- 1:02the church that had an intensity regardless of what anybody else
- 1:08was doing or thinking or feeling.
- 1:10The faithful remnant has always been present among God's people.
- 1:14Whether we look at Israel and the Old Testament with their
- 1:17many rebellions and wars, or at the more recent church history
- 1:21of the Middle Ages, we see there has been strife and dissension
- 1:26within the people of God. Notably, though, there has
- 1:29always been a section of those who remained faithful and
- 1:32obedient. Noah, Joseph, David.
- 1:36Each of these are an example of someone who continued to follow
- 1:40the Lord even when it wasn't popular.
- 1:43Now here's Pastor Clark in Revelation Chapter 3 with
- 1:46today's edition of Living Waters of Grace.
- 1:50This church failed to keep adequate watch in their own
- 1:54spiritual community. The sin of the church was
- 1:58encroaching upon the glory of God.
- 2:02The importance of the church always being in repentance.
- 2:06You guys might get tired of me talking about repentance.
- 2:08When I stopped talking about repentance, that's when you need
- 2:12to start start worrying. The message of repentance is
- 2:16continual. Day in and day out.
- 2:20I'm either moving and pushing and rushing toward God, right?
- 2:24I'm moving and rushing away from God.
- 2:26There's only two places you or I are heading in.
- 2:30We're either pressing into God or we're moving away from God.
- 2:34When we're moving away from God, that's when we need to repent
- 2:38and we repent, we turn back to God and we're moving in the
- 2:42right direction. And so the importance of
- 2:45repentance and the Lord is very specific.
- 2:48And the majority of these seven churches, the message to the
- 2:50majority of them is this message of repentance.
- 2:56If we don't individually and corporately as a church live in
- 3:00repentance, the power of God will be non existent in this
- 3:04church, starting with me and the elders.
- 3:07If I allow hardness in my heart, or backsliding, or bitterness,
- 3:13or unbelief or immoral thoughts or double mindedness to capture
- 3:20my attention, the church will become weak.
- 3:26If you come to the church with less than a passion for the
- 3:32Lordship of Jesus Christ in your life, you will be weak.
- 3:36Your family will be weak. The church will be weak.
- 3:40It's a body of Christ, right? All of us together, we all
- 3:43either inspire each other to press in deeper to God, or we
- 3:47inspire each other to move away from God.
- 3:51And so the Lord is clearly speaking what needs to be
- 3:54occurring in this church now. It was a difficult city to live
- 3:58in because of the intensity of the immorality, just like it is
- 4:03for us today in our world. It's getting more difficult as
- 4:07the days go by to maintain purity in your mind because of
- 4:12what the media portrays every day.
- 4:15The billboards, the radio advertisements, the television
- 4:18ads. I mean, you cannot help but to
- 4:21be assaulted by immoral thinking because of the dominance of
- 4:25media, Internet, television, radio waves.
- 4:29I have to discipline myself. I got XM radio and I'm working.
- 4:32I'm driving around all the time and I get bored.
- 4:34Sometimes I'm listening to CSNBC or sometimes I'm listening to
- 4:38Fox. Sometimes I'm listening to
- 4:40classical music. Sometimes I'm listening to talk
- 4:42radio. And I was listening, I think
- 4:45Glenn Becker or Sean Hannity was on the other day.
- 4:48And Cindy and I are walking and all of a sudden like the next
- 4:51person that came on singing this like immoral song.
- 4:54I mean, and Cindy's like, what's that?
- 4:56How did that, how did that, you know, this is like a a talk
- 4:59conservative talk station that you wouldn't anticipate
- 5:01something like that coming on. And I I was like, you know, for
- 5:05a couple minutes, I'm like, listen to it.
- 5:06I'm like, yeah, what what how did that?
- 5:08Is this that I accidentally hit the wrong button?
- 5:10You, you need to be constantly aware of what is coming into
- 5:13your conscience. Now, this city was known for its
- 5:17immorality. And so as a result of the
- 5:21church, it was getting more and more difficult for them to have
- 5:24moral restraint, not an excuse when the culture goes downhill,
- 5:28that you say, well, if everybody's being somewhat
- 5:31lackadaisical in their moral fiber, we can't help it.
- 5:35We're just, we're all part of it together, the world.
- 5:38So I guess, you know, we all sort of go down to drain
- 5:39together. No, there needs to be a constant
- 5:43remnant of believers that are saying, no, we're not going this
- 5:46way. We're going the Lord's way.
- 5:48And, and I'm turning the TV off and I'm teaching my kids,
- 5:51there's certain things that you watch and there's certain things
- 5:54you don't watch, right? There's certain filters you need
- 5:57to have on your Internet so that the wrong things don't come in
- 6:00to defile you and to attack you and to trap you and entice you.
- 6:05And so the Lord is speaking about this church, but also
- 6:09encouraging them in verse 4 that you have a few names even in
- 6:13Sardis who have not defiled their garments.
- 6:15And they shall walk with me in white, for they are worthy.
- 6:18In every church there is always a remnant.
- 6:22I believe there's a strong remnant in this church.
- 6:25I believe that the Lord is drawing the type of people to
- 6:28this church that are serious about their relationship with
- 6:31Jesus Christ. We're praying.
- 6:33Lord, send those who are hungry for you, take those out that
- 6:38aren't hungry for you. And Lord, stir up those here
- 6:42today that aren't hungry, that down deep inside really want to
- 6:47be hungry. They've just sort of lost their
- 6:49way. Help them to hear your voice
- 6:52today and to be able to repent. But there's always this group of
- 6:56people, thank God, since the beginning of time, throughout
- 6:59the Old Testament, when Israel rank and file were turning their
- 7:03backs toward God, there was a remnant, always right, that
- 7:07moved toward God, that the Lord could work through, that He
- 7:11could be glorified in the midst of.
- 7:14And in this church, Sardis, in the midst of its struggle and
- 7:18floundering, there was people in the church that had an intensity
- 7:22regardless of what anybody else was doing or thinking or
- 7:26feeling. And that's sort of like with all
- 7:28of you. When you come here on a Sunday
- 7:30or Wednesday or some gathering, some meeting, what's drawing you
- 7:33to the community? What's drawing you to the
- 7:36church? Hopefully it's not programs or
- 7:40entertainment. Those are all well and good.
- 7:43They can be fun. But it's the Spirit of God
- 7:45that's drawing you, because if the Spirit of God isn't drawing
- 7:49us in this church, we really don't have a church, do we?
- 7:55It has to be the Spirit in our midst that's drawing all of us
- 7:59to deeper places with the Lord. The only good thing about this
- 8:04church is this fact that there is this remnant, and they're
- 8:08described as people who are overcoming in verse 5.
- 8:11He who overcome shall be clothed in white garments.
- 8:15Now he says that they have this name that was alive.
- 8:18If you ever gone to a church, it might be a big church, a lot of
- 8:21people, a lot of activity and you just assume driving up
- 8:24because of the parking lot and the police and all, man,
- 8:27something must be happening here.
- 8:28Look at all this man, look at this facility.
- 8:30Look at the size of this or the size of that and you're a
- 8:34remnant believer. You don't, you just maybe you're
- 8:38moving into community, you're looking around trying to find a
- 8:40church or whatever. And most times people think,
- 8:43well, the biggest church is a happening church, right?
- 8:45So you go and you park your car and you go in and you sit there,
- 8:49but something down deep in your in your heart is struggling
- 8:52because you're saying God, what in the world's going on in here?
- 8:57All these people and the worship is so self-centered.
- 9:01The worship isn't exalting the Lord.
- 9:05The the message is about me and not you.
- 9:11And if you're a remnant believer, you're going to
- 9:13recognize that and you're not going to go back to that kind of
- 9:16church. But if you're those who have a
- 9:20name that you're alive because of the capacity to the crowd and
- 9:25what the world says about the facility and the church, but the
- 9:29Spirit says that you're dead. You won't know if you're not a
- 9:34remnant believer and around that believer isn't a higher class
- 9:40Christian or super Christian. It's someone who I believe is
- 9:43truly a Christian. Because when you're really a
- 9:47believer and you really know Jesus Christ, you can't help to
- 9:51have conflict in your heart and in your spirit when things
- 9:54aren't the way they need to be. You just know the Holy Spirit
- 9:57convicts you. He gives you insight, He gives
- 9:59you enlightenment, and finally you just say enough is enough
- 10:04and you move on and you ask the Lord to guide you to where he
- 10:07wants you to be. God has a way of looking at
- 10:11ministries, and man has a way of looking at ministries.
- 10:16And the Lord in this church is able to see that the community
- 10:20thinks it's alive. The church itself thinks it's
- 10:24alive, but he says really clearly you're dead.
- 10:30The church is doing all kind of works.
- 10:34It's busy, it's active. He says I found your works not
- 10:40perfect. I have not found your works
- 10:43perfect before God. So in other words, a church that
- 10:45has a lot of programs and a lot of work, basically from God's
- 10:51perspective, if it isn't the right work and it isn't done
- 10:54through his Spirit is imperfect. Basically, it's a waste.
- 10:58It's going to burn. You know, the judgment seat of
- 11:00Christ. It talks about the works being
- 11:02tried with fire. Some will go through and come
- 11:05out gold, silver, Prussian stone, and some are going to
- 11:07come out wood, hay, and stubble. Some are going to be found
- 11:13worthless. And so when the works are tried
- 11:16by God and they're not found perfect, He's looking about
- 11:19what's the purity of the motives?
- 11:21And is what you're doing being done by the Holy Spirit, or is
- 11:25it this being done because someone said it was a good idea?
- 11:28We should do this or we should do that?
- 11:31I mean, we're told in our pastors conferences when there's
- 11:34a ministry that's on artificial life support, pull the plug.
- 11:39If God isn't in it, why waste your time and your energy and
- 11:42your money doing something that has no life?
- 11:48But many times our pride gets in the way.
- 11:50Well, this is my ministry and this is what I'm doing.
- 11:52And this is, you know, and the Lord isn't interested in my
- 11:55ministry or your ministry. He's interested in his ministry.
- 12:01So the public perceives one thing about this church
- 12:04outwardly, it's mechanically driven.
- 12:07It's, it's everything's firing on all cylinders.
- 12:09Everything looks good, but it's a ministry of the flesh.
- 12:14And God perceives one thing the heart and the remnant is
- 12:21following the Lord after the heart here they overcomers a
- 12:24faithful because they're being LED of the Spirit.
- 12:27There was a man who gave a good in good insight regard to what
- 12:31ministries are. It starts out with a man.
- 12:35Our ministry started out with a man by the name of Chuck Smith,
- 12:3886 years old now, still going strong, still preaching 3 times
- 12:42on Sunday over 2000 churches. The result of this man's calling
- 12:48and his willingness to open the doors for others to serve in the
- 12:55heart and the movement of the Holy Spirit through Calvary
- 13:00Chapel. So it starts out with a man
- 13:03that's like Charles Wesley the Methodist Church and John Calvin
- 13:08in the Presbyterian Church and Martin Luther in the Lutheran
- 13:11Church starts out with a man. God uses a man verse a ministry,
- 13:15a movement through a man, and then what happens is after the
- 13:20movement begins and it's birthed by the Holy Spirit, the movement
- 13:23has a tendency to become a machine.
- 13:26So all of a sudden we have our dove and we have our Maranatha
- 13:31music and we have our blue jeans and we have our laid back way
- 13:37about ourselves. Well, that can be very easily
- 13:41mechanical, can it? And machine will eventually
- 13:47break down. And then after the machine, the
- 13:53movement becomes a monument. I was at a church down in the
- 13:58college down in West Virginia, and I see a big statue of a
- 14:03person out front. And I asked the person, well,
- 14:05who is that? And they said, well, that's John
- 14:08Wesley. And I went into the church,
- 14:11beautiful church. And I asked, you know, what kind
- 14:13of services they had there and what went on.
- 14:16And it had nothing to do with what Charles Wesley was called
- 14:19to do. Great Awakening.
- 14:23The church had moved away from the vision of the Holy Spirit
- 14:28through that man's life. And now it literally became a
- 14:31monument, right? Beautiful college, big statue of
- 14:35Wesley. But no one knew Wesley's heart
- 14:37or what he was like or what made him tick for God.
- 14:41If you turn over to Galatians chapter 3, for a moment, Paul
- 14:44speaks about this phenomena occurring way back in his
- 14:48ministry days. He's speaking to the Galatians
- 14:52church in Galatia, and he says in verse 1 of chapter 3, O
- 14:55foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you?
- 14:58In other words, who hath deceived you?
- 15:00Who has confused you, Who's mixed you up, that you should
- 15:03not obey the truth before whose eyes Jesus Christ was clearly
- 15:06portrayed among you, is crucified.
- 15:09This only I want to learn from you.
- 15:11Did you receive the Spirit by the works of the law, or by the
- 15:15hearing of faith? Are you so foolish?
- 15:17Having begun in the Spirit? Are you now being made perfect
- 15:21by the flesh? Have you suffered so many things
- 15:24in vain? If indeed it was in vain, that's
- 15:30every time Chuck would come to the Pastor's conference.
- 15:34I used to think, well he's getting older, he must have some
- 15:37degree of Alzheimer's and dementia because he keeps saying
- 15:40the same thing to us every year. And after about 3 conferences, I
- 15:45started getting what he was talking about and I understood
- 15:48why we needed to be reminded. He'd stand up, he'd say, oh
- 15:52foolish Galatians, who hath bewitched you, that you starting
- 15:59out in the Spirit, thinking now it can be made perfect by the
- 16:03flesh. He said.
- 16:06I've never seen a movement of God in the history of the church
- 16:10that didn't start out as a movement of the Holy Spirit,
- 16:13that didn't end up dying, because it became a movement
- 16:17controlled by man. And his expectation to us all
- 16:21the time was to be men of the Spirit, men dependent on the
- 16:27Spirit, men desperate for the Holy Spirit, men crying out for
- 16:32the Holy Spirit. That we in our churches would
- 16:35not turn the ministry into a machine and a monument, That the
- 16:41ministry would be fresh all the time.
- 16:44That it wouldn't be something that anybody could say it was
- 16:47because of some historical thing that happened 30 or 40 years
- 16:52ago. But at its current, it's
- 16:55contemporary, it's present working and movement of the Holy
- 16:59Spirit. Zechariah chapter 4 verse 6 says
- 17:04this is the word of the Lord to Zerubbabel, not by might, nor by
- 17:09power, but by my Holy Spirit, but by my Spirit, says the Lord
- 17:13of hosts. The Holy Spirit is the power of
- 17:17the church. He's the one that gives the life
- 17:22to the church. He's the one that reveals Jesus
- 17:25Christ to the lost. He's the one that encourages you
- 17:28and lifts you up, not of your despair and out of your sin and
- 17:31out of your lethargy and complacency.
- 17:36If we grieve the Holy Spirit, we lose the power in the church.
- 17:43But the good news is if we repent of our sin, and that's
- 17:48what many of us did here last Sunday after church, if we
- 17:51repent of our sin, the church becomes alive, doesn't it?
- 17:57Jesus said in John 663 it is a Spirit who gives life.
- 18:02The flesh prophets nothing. The words I speak to you are
- 18:07Spirit and they are life. The Lord is here in our midst
- 18:11today. His heart is totally focused
- 18:15upon Himself being revealed to your heart and mind today.
- 18:20That's what this is all about, Christ in our myths, Christ
- 18:23being worshipped and glorified and magnified.
- 18:26Nothing else is important but Him.
- 18:32He says it's a spirit who'll give you life.
- 18:38The flesh profits nothing. So it's easy as churches to fall
- 18:43into mechanical activities of ministry.
- 18:46You have people running ministries, many places that
- 18:51aren't walking with the Lord, but they're in the ministries
- 18:54because the church needs people to do whatever it is that they
- 18:57need to do right in order to keep it going.
- 18:59And so the church begins to be desperate instead of praying and
- 19:03waiting on the Lord. Lord send me the right person to
- 19:06do the ministry. I'll just grab any warm body
- 19:09that I can get right just to keep it alive.
- 19:12And what happens is you get people who are living in sin
- 19:16that are teaching kids. You got pastors who are burnt
- 19:19out because they're trying to keep the machine going and they
- 19:21know it's breaking down, but they can't keep it going.
- 19:24And they're getting weary and tired and bitter and angry.
- 19:31And the devotion that the people are supposed to have, that they
- 19:36would serve the Lord out of only the motivation of love for God.
- 19:41As Jesus said, if you love me, you'll keep my word.
- 19:43In other words, if you love me, you'll do what I ask you to do.
- 19:46There is no devotion. There's no love.
- 19:50The moment I stop loving God and the moment I stop loving you
- 19:53guys is the day I got to resign. There's too many of us in
- 19:58ministry that are in ministry because it's become a mistress.
- 20:01It's become an ego thing. I want to speak to 10 people.
- 20:05I want to speak to 100 people. I want to speak to 1000 people.
- 20:09And then meanwhile, the pastor goes home and he's kicking the
- 20:11dog and yelling at the wife, miserable.
- 20:14But everybody in the church thinks they're so wonderful
- 20:16because no one really knows who they are because they can't get
- 20:19to them, especially in the bigger church.
- 20:21So they assume they walk on water until the wife says, I've
- 20:24had enough. I quit.
- 20:28You can't quit if you quit. They'll really know what I'm
- 20:32like and they won't come into church anymore.
- 20:35Matthew 15-8 says these people draw near to me with their mouth
- 20:40and honor me with their lips, but their heart is far from me.
- 20:44So you got a church, whether it's this size or 10 times this
- 20:47size, God sees the heart when we worship.
- 20:50And Rick and the guys, Giles, lead us in the Lord's presence
- 20:56that we can sing the songs, we can raise our hands.
- 21:00But Jesus says the possibility exists that there will be some
- 21:03of us here that will draw near to him with our his, our mouths,
- 21:08honor him with our lips, but our heart is far from him.
- 21:13You know, the works that this church was doing was not drawing
- 21:18attention to the greatness of God.
- 21:20It was drawing attention to the greatness of the church.
- 21:22That's why everybody thought the church was alive, right?
- 21:30But Jesus says these works aren't perfect.
- 21:34He's only interested in perfect works, and only by the Holy
- 21:38Spirit can works be perfect. If I'm doing them in my own
- 21:42strength, they might look good. You might say, oh wow, that was
- 21:44great, or whatever the Lord says it stinks.
- 21:50And the problem is that churches and leaders have become more
- 21:54interested in what the people think than what God thinks.
- 21:59Man pleasers wanting people to think highly of them instead of
- 22:06God seeing them and saying, well done, good and faithful servant.
- 22:12Ephesians 210 says, and John went over this in the men's
- 22:15meeting this morning. We are his workmanship created
- 22:18in Christ Jesus for good works. God saved you and delivered you
- 22:23and me from sin to do good works which God prepared beforehand
- 22:29that we should walk in him. So in other words, I believe
- 22:31every one of our lives, when we're brought into the Kingdom,
- 22:34God has a plan, a perfect plan for every one of our lives, a
- 22:38list of works that he wants to work through us if we're yielded
- 22:42and dependent on him. And many of us, for whatever
- 22:45reason, we get sidetracked so often and we see these other
- 22:48work. So I'm going to go do these.
- 22:50And God said, well, I didn't create you for that.
- 22:52I created you for this, but I really want to do this.
- 22:54And the Lord said, no, no, come over.
- 22:55This is this is what I'll empower you with.
- 22:58This is how I'll bless you. This is how I use you.
- 23:00No, no, I want this, I want to do this.
- 23:02And so we go do this and it's not perfect.
- 23:06It's weak, it's dead, it's dry, it wears on us, it makes us
- 23:11breakdown. And eventually we say, I can't
- 23:13do this anymore. And the Lord says, well, I never
- 23:15asked you to do it. You're doing your works instead
- 23:19of my works. He says my yoke is easy and my
- 23:22burden is light. So if we're wearing a yoke and a
- 23:25burden and we're trying to serve God and it's burning us out and
- 23:28wearing us down, God's saying this is not the yoke I have for
- 23:32you. Come back over here and humble
- 23:34yourself and do these things. Well, Lord, that's doesn't seem
- 23:38real important. Well, to me it's critically
- 23:42important because if you do what I made you to do, people will
- 23:46see me in your life. In the Book of Revelation,
- 23:50Pastor Clark is taking us through all kinds of events and
- 23:53happenings that are predicted for the future.
- 23:57But for those who believe and follow Jesus, there's much to
- 24:00look forward to in heaven with Jesus.
- 24:03However, for those who are here on earth during the Tribulation,
- 24:07there's all kinds of chaos that will unfold.
- 24:11The Bible talks about an Antichrist, a false prophet, and
- 24:15of course, that evil enemy, Satan.
- 24:18Do you see how there are such clever attempts for the enemy to
- 24:21disguise himself as God and even the Trinity?
- 24:25The true Savior of the world is God and how he comes to rescue
- 24:29through his triune nature God the Father, Jesus the Son, and
- 24:34God the Holy Spirit. Just like Satan tried to take
- 24:39over for God in heaven and was cast out, Satan will try to
- 24:43convince people on earth that he is the Triune God to be
- 24:47worshipped instead of the legitimate God in heaven.
- 24:50It's an attempt, and although he will capture plenty in his
- 24:54schemes, he will not win. The true God wins, and
- 24:59Revelation unpacks how that will all happen in detail.
- 25:03Be encouraged because there's a way out for all of this madness
- 25:07that will ensue on this earth. But you don't want to wait
- 25:11indefinitely to make that decision about Jesus.
- 25:15We don't know when the church will be raptured, and you want
- 25:18to be ready to be with Jesus. To learn more about this, head
- 25:22over to calvarychapelonline.com. We're so glad you've been with
- 25:28us today. And if you'd like to connect
- 25:30further with this ministry, find us on Facebook or YouTube.
- 25:34You can also download our mobile app at calvarychapelonline.com.
- 25:39Be sure to join us for weekly services at 400 E Pittsburgh St.
- 25:44Ste. 6B in Greensburg, PA 15601. This has been living waters of
- 25:53grace.