Latest / Living Waters of Grace / Calvary Chapel of Westmoreland Sunday Services / Living Waters of Grace 11.12.25

Transcript

Living Waters of Grace 11.12.25 · Living Waters of Grace / Calvary Chapel of Westmoreland Sunday Services

• 0:03
  This is Living Waters of Grace, the teaching ministry of Clark
• 0:08
  Wofford, senior pastor of Calvary Chapel of Westmoreland,
• 0:12
  County of Greensburg, PA. Now here's Pastor Clark as he
• 0:16
  continues teaching through God's Word.
• 0:37
  This isn't enough that Christ died for our sins, but that He
• 0:41
  rose again from the dead is the evidence to the human race that
• 0:45
  truly He is the only one that can conquer the power of sin and
• 0:50
  death, and that His death was accepted by the Father as being
• 0:54
  enough for the forgiveness of sins for all those who would
• 0:58
  come and trust in Him as their Lord and Savior.
• 1:02
  That's why Jesus, when He died, He said it is finished.
• 1:06
  And aren't you glad it is finished?
• 1:08
  One of the facts of life is that everyone dies.
• 1:11
  All of us are going to pass away from this world in one way or
• 1:14
  another. Some of us hope that our passing
• 1:17
  will have some meaning, but we don't always get to make that
• 1:20
  call. But what Pastor Clark reminds us
• 1:23
  today is that not only did Jesus know how he was going to die,
• 1:27
  his death did something that no one else could accomplish.
• 1:31
  He conquered sin and death itself.
• 1:34
  By the power of his death and his resurrection, we have the
• 1:39
  hope of eternal life because of Jesus.
• 1:42
  Now here's Pastor Clark in Acts chapter 17 with today's edition
• 1:46
  of Living Waters of Grace. When we ended the study last
• 1:51
  time, I taught Paul was persecuted in Philippi and he
• 1:56
  eventually had to leave that region, and he left encouraged
• 2:00
  in the Lord because of what the Holy Spirit was doing in the
• 2:03
  church in Philippi. And so wherever the gospel went,
• 2:07
  there was always evidence of people becoming believers and
• 2:10
  having their lives transformed. And so he continues today in
• 2:14
  chapter 17 of Acts in the city of Thessalonica.
• 2:18
  And it says now when they had passed through Amphilias and
• 2:22
  Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica where there was a
• 2:25
  synagogue of the Jews. Now this is about 100 miles from
• 2:30
  Philippi, about 3 days journey of walking about 30 miles a day.
• 2:34
  It wasn't a quick jaunt there. They stayed in a couple cities
• 2:38
  prior to getting to Thessalonica.
• 2:40
  These cities didn't have a synagogue.
• 2:42
  So he didn't really have the ability to meet with a lot of
• 2:45
  people at any given time. The nice thing about Paul's
• 2:48
  background being Jewish, he was able to go and be invited to any
• 2:53
  synagogue in any city to share the good news.
• 2:56
  And that was a Lord only opening that kind of door.
• 2:59
  Even though the Jewish people from the most point in time, at
• 3:03
  this particular point in history didn't recognize Christ as
• 3:06
  Messiah, but he was able to go into these places and have these
• 3:11
  open doors that only the Holy Spirit could set up for him.
• 3:15
  And because of that, he had the privilege of telling them about
• 3:19
  the one that they had studied about through the Old Testament
• 3:22
  Scriptures. And so Thessalonica, an
• 3:25
  interesting city. I was there some time ago when
• 3:28
  my journeys to Israel and on the way back from Israel, I went to
• 3:33
  Greece and I actually was in Thessalonica and it just gave me
• 3:36
  chills to walk around the streets.
• 3:38
  They're thinking about Apostle and what he did there, what he
• 3:41
  spoke about. Just fascinating.
• 3:43
  It's a coastal city, very beautiful city, couple
• 3:46
  universities there, a lot of atmosphere of paganism and that
• 3:50
  kind of stuff, but still evidence of the gospel of Jesus
• 3:54
  Christ and and churches in that region to this day.
• 3:57
  So he went into the synagogue to to share the gospel.
• 4:00
  Then Paul, as his custom was, went into them in verse 2, and
• 4:05
  for three Sabbaths he reasoned with them from the Scriptures,
• 4:08
  explaining and demonstrating that the Christ had to suffer
• 4:12
  and rise again from a dead, and saying this Jesus whom I
• 4:16
  preached you is the Christ. And some of them were persuaded,
• 4:20
  and a great multitude of devout Greeks and not a few of the
• 4:23
  leading women joined Paul and Silas.
• 4:26
  So he had a very effective ministry at this particular
• 4:29
  time. The Holy Spirit had prepared
• 4:31
  hearts to receive what it was He was teaching and he didn't teach
• 4:35
  from human logic. It says he reasoned with them
• 4:38
  from the Scriptures. He always used the Scriptures
• 4:45
  because the Scriptures are the only ingredient that can cause
• 4:49
  someone to become a believer in Jesus Christ.
• 4:53
  It's not arguments, it's not debates, it's not human ideas.
• 4:59
  It's the preaching of the gospel that changes hearts.
• 5:03
  As all of us know, the majority of us here today are here is
• 5:06
  born again believers because of the impact that the Gospels had
• 5:10
  upon us. But what's interesting here as
• 5:12
  you get into this study and read about these Greek words,
• 5:16
  reasoning and explaining and demonstrating was that he took
• 5:20
  the time to give them the opportunity to ask questions as
• 5:26
  he shared the truth of the gospel with them and he reasoned
• 5:30
  with them, not from his own logic as a an attorney.
• 5:34
  Very bright man, the apostle Paul was, his dependency was on
• 5:39
  the scriptures. Now we got to realize at this
• 5:41
  time the Scriptures weren't what we have in our hands today.
• 5:45
  The 66 books of the Bible, all the Apostolic writings, and even
• 5:51
  the book of the Acts at the time was not written yet.
• 5:54
  So he was referring to everything and his understanding
• 5:58
  of the Old Testament that he was grounded in as a Jew.
• 6:02
  So he's preaching Christ from the Old Testament Scriptures,
• 6:07
  Isaiah 53, Psalm 22, and many other scriptures that gave the
• 6:12
  evidence that Messiah would come and be born of a virgin and
• 6:17
  eventually become the Savior of the world.
• 6:21
  And so as he's debating and talking and explaining, he
• 6:25
  specifically talked about the absolute necessity of Christ
• 6:30
  having to die for sin. The Jewish people understood the
• 6:34
  need for atonement. They understood the need for
• 6:37
  repentance. They understood the need for
• 6:39
  shedding of blood. They utilize the skins of
• 6:42
  animals and slaughtering animals and sufficing them in the altar
• 6:46
  throughout the Old Testament scriptures to show that without
• 6:50
  the shedding of blood there is no remission of sin.
• 6:53
  But the shedding of blood of animals and goats was not enough
• 6:57
  to redeem mankind from his sinful nature, his fallen sinful
• 7:02
  nature. There had to be one that would
• 7:04
  come and be truly the one that could atone for sin.
• 7:08
  And he demonstrated to them that Jesus Christ was a Lamb of God,
• 7:13
  slain before the foundation of the earth.
• 7:15
  Without the death of Christ, there is no gospel.
• 7:19
  Without the death of Christ, there is no forgiveness of sins.
• 7:22
  Without the death and the shedding blood of Jesus Christ,
• 7:26
  there is no ability for mankind to be free from his guilt, from
• 7:31
  the power and impact that sin has on the human condition in
• 7:35
  the human life. And so he's explaining to them,
• 7:38
  and they're connecting with this because they understood the need
• 7:41
  for atonement and sacrifice, but they didn't quite understand yet
• 7:46
  that Jesus Christ is their Messiah.
• 7:49
  And so Paul's discussing this with them, but not only the fact
• 7:53
  that Christ had to suffer and die, but that he rose again from
• 7:57
  the dead. This is the true power of the
• 8:02
  gospel. This isn't enough that Christ
• 8:04
  died for our sins, but that He rose again from the dead is the
• 8:09
  evidence to the human race that truly He is the only one that
• 8:14
  can conquer the power of sin and death, and that His death was
• 8:18
  accepted by the Father as being enough for the forgiveness of
• 8:22
  sins for all those who would come and trust in Him as their
• 8:27
  Lord and Savior. That's why Jesus, when He died,
• 8:30
  He said it is finished. And aren't you glad it is
• 8:33
  finished? There's nothing else anybody can
• 8:35
  add to what it is that Christ has done.
• 8:38
  There's no work that you and I have to do to try to make sure
• 8:42
  that we are really saved. We're saved based upon the
• 8:46
  gospel of Jesus Christ. For Jesus Christ told us.
• 8:50
  For God so loved this world that he gave his only begotten Son,
• 8:55
  that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have
• 8:59
  everlasting life. Such a simple, powerful,
• 9:04
  profound, miraculous word of God from Jesus own lips of salvation
• 9:10
  being by faith alone, by grace alone in Christ alone, right?
• 9:17
  Not anything that we could do, only what He's done.
• 9:22
  And we serve him because of what He's done for us.
• 9:25
  We don't serve Jesus to try to get points or to try to get on
• 9:29
  the good side of God. We're already on the good side
• 9:32
  of God because what Christ has done for us, he reconciled us
• 9:36
  fully, completely. There's not one thing you or I
• 9:39
  could do or add to the finished work of Jesus Christ.
• 9:43
  And this is a big stretch for these Jewish people in the
• 9:46
  synagogue because many of them have been indoctrinated in
• 9:51
  works, righteousness, all the responsibilities of the edicts
• 9:57
  of the law and all the principles of kosher stuff and
• 10:04
  all the Jewish traditions. It was just overwhelming.
• 10:08
  And the evidence of all that stuff in the Old Testament was
• 10:13
  allowed and designed by God to show the human race it.
• 10:16
  No matter how much you work or how hard you try or whatever you
• 10:21
  try to do to be good, you can't be good enough to be acceptable
• 10:25
  to God. There's only one that makes you
• 10:28
  good enough and that's Jesus Christ.
• 10:30
  And this is the whole foundation of the good news of the gospel
• 10:34
  of Jesus Christ. It takes the guilt, it takes
• 10:37
  this sense of I have to do something off of us and get our
• 10:42
  eyes on the one who did it all for us.
• 10:45
  And that's the one we worship. That's the one we celebrate.
• 10:49
  And so it says it's some of them were persuaded.
• 10:53
  Not everybody that hears this message believes.
• 10:56
  Perhaps it took a while for you to hear it and believe it.
• 11:00
  It did take some time for me. I didn't believe it the first
• 11:03
  time I heard it. Matter of fact, I wanted to try
• 11:06
  to reject it and ignore it and act like it wasn't true so I
• 11:10
  could live the way I wanted to live.
• 11:12
  And I did that for a period of time.
• 11:14
  It's such a compelling, powerful truth that whenever it begins to
• 11:21
  get into your heart and into your mind, it eventually
• 11:24
  captivates you because God is the one that comes after us.
• 11:30
  We don't come after God. The Bible tells us that there's
• 11:34
  none that seeketh after God. That's tragic, but God seeks
• 11:38
  after us. Aren't you glad that He sought
• 11:41
  us and bought us with his redeeming blood, as the hymn
• 11:45
  says? And so some believe, praise God.
• 11:48
  There's this evidence of the work of the Holy Spirit through
• 11:52
  the preaching of the Word of God.
• 11:55
  Paul couldn't do anything to save them.
• 11:57
  All he could do is present the evidence which he did here very
• 12:01
  accurately. And it says some were persuaded
• 12:05
  and a great multitude of the devout Greeks and not a few of
• 12:09
  the leading women join Paul and Silas.
• 12:11
  All the sudden, there's a church established here in Thessalonica
• 12:14
  at this point in time. Pastor Lewis took us through 1st
• 12:17
  and 2nd Thessalonians a while back, and you might want to read
• 12:21
  those books now because this is all about this particular city
• 12:24
  in this church plant and all that developed in here because
• 12:27
  of the work and the continual growth of the church in the days
• 12:31
  long after this had actually occurred.
• 12:34
  And then it says in verse 5. But the Jews who were not
• 12:37
  persuaded. And there's always people that
• 12:38
  aren't going to believe you have friends, neighbors, family,
• 12:42
  relatives, whatever coworkers you shared the gospel with, and
• 12:46
  they have not been persuaded yet.
• 12:49
  But don't give up. Keep praying for them.
• 12:52
  Keep living your faith out. Allow God to do the work and
• 12:56
  trusting him to convince them you can't convince them.
• 13:00
  So some of these Jews, and these are the same Jews that cause
• 13:03
  problems in some of the other cities leading up to this
• 13:05
  chapter, became envious. They're jealous of the power and
• 13:11
  the influence that this word, the gospel of Jesus Christ is
• 13:15
  having on the people. The Old Testament law has lost
• 13:19
  its allure, its impact. It's boring, it's dead, it's
• 13:24
  dry, it's dead, it's lifeless. The law cannot do anything but
• 13:31
  bring death. The Spirit gives life.
• 13:35
  And so they're dealing with these people that are wondering
• 13:39
  like why are these people listening to this guy?
• 13:42
  We're losing influence, we're losing population in our
• 13:46
  synagogues. And now these people are
• 13:49
  following the teachings of the gospel given through Paul and
• 13:53
  Silas. And these guys were not any self
• 13:57
  focused and interested in breaking up what was happening
• 14:00
  here. But it says they went out and
• 14:02
  they took some men from the marketplace.
• 14:05
  They're looking for troublemakers, Pagan godless
• 14:08
  people to stand up and get a mob and set all the city in an
• 14:13
  uproar. Something that we see happening
• 14:17
  in our own country now, isn't it?
• 14:19
  When Christians try to congregate on outside events to
• 14:23
  try to have opportunity to share the gospel, we read in the
• 14:27
  headlines, we see in the news these mobs that are standing up
• 14:30
  and and hating anything that represents God's love and his
• 14:34
  mercy and his justice and his grace and attacking and stoning.
• 14:39
  And they did this back then and they're doing it now in all
• 14:41
  parts of the world. That's actually beginning to
• 14:43
  happen in our own country. And so they can't find Paul and
• 14:47
  Silas at the time. So it says they attacked the
• 14:50
  House of Jason, and the Bible doesn't tell us a lot about
• 14:53
  Jason, but Jason was a brother who obviously was a believer and
• 14:57
  he had this influence in the community at the time.
• 15:00
  And so believers were beginning to assemble with Jason.
• 15:03
  And Jason was the one that I'm sure gave up Paul and Silas some
• 15:07
  place to hang out for a while as they were in the city.
• 15:10
  And so they're going to his house now and they're looking to
• 15:14
  bring Paul and Silas out to the people.
• 15:16
  But when they did not find them, they dragged Jason and some
• 15:19
  brethren to the rulers of the city, crying out.
• 15:22
  So this by your connection and your influence in your life for
• 15:30
  Christ, people are going to at times attack you, maybe not to
• 15:35
  this extreme at this point in time in our history as a nation,
• 15:39
  pray that there would be revival, that we won't have to
• 15:42
  deal with this kind of stuff. But in many, many places of the
• 15:45
  world today, this is happening to the Christians.
• 15:48
  So you're guilty by association. You might not be the one that's
• 15:52
  doing the preaching or the teaching, but just the fact that
• 15:55
  you're supporting or connected with those who do, you're going
• 15:59
  to be accused of insurrection. And so they, they bring him out
• 16:03
  and they can't find the other guys.
• 16:06
  They're saying now to the authorities, these who have
• 16:09
  turned the world upside down have come here too.
• 16:13
  Isn't a wonderful thing that these two guys, two men in the
• 16:16
  midst of a city at the time of over 200,000 people and
• 16:20
  Thessalonica are having this kind of impact?
• 16:24
  It's impossible for men to have this kind of impact.
• 16:27
  This is the power of God. This is the power of the Holy
• 16:29
  Spirit that is waking the city up to their need of Jesus
• 16:33
  Christ. And I think about revivals and
• 16:36
  times that God's moved and has brought many, many people into
• 16:40
  his Kingdom. What happens when the church
• 16:43
  begins to have influence? It begins to turn people's lives
• 16:47
  right side up. They hear the gospel and their
• 16:51
  lives begin to be changed. We're not the same.
• 16:59
  If any man's in Christ is a new creation, old things are passed
• 17:03
  away. Behold, all things have become
• 17:05
  new. We're not the same as we were
• 17:08
  before, and people notice that. That's what impacts people to be
• 17:16
  interested in what it is you're following or believing in.
• 17:22
  And these guys are paranoid now and they're accusing Paul and
• 17:26
  Silas and anyone at this point in time who's a follower of
• 17:28
  Christ. They're they're turning the
• 17:31
  world upside down. But I'll tell you, if there was
• 17:33
  ever a time in our time that the world needs to be turned right
• 17:38
  side up, it's today. And we're the ones that God
• 17:43
  wants to use, and He will use us.
• 17:46
  And He is using US in spite of our imperfections, in spite of
• 17:50
  our fears, in spite of our anxieties or insecurities at
• 17:53
  times. The Lord is in US and He will
• 17:56
  shine through us if we get out of the way and let His life and
• 18:00
  His light be evident in and through our lives.
• 18:05
  And so Jason is being accused here as harboring them or giving
• 18:10
  them a safe place to be. And these are all acting
• 18:14
  contrary to the decrees of Caesar.
• 18:16
  So they're basically saying that Paul and Silas are causing a
• 18:20
  rebellion against Caesar is the king.
• 18:23
  And that was never the case. Jesus was accused of causing
• 18:27
  problems in the political arena. Jesus could care less about the
• 18:31
  political arena. He said, my Kingdom isn't of
• 18:34
  this world. Politics isn't what gets the
• 18:39
  Kingdom established here in the earth.
• 18:42
  Jesus Christ is the only one that can establish the Kingdom.
• 18:46
  And the Kingdom isn't of this world.
• 18:48
  It's not of America or Russia or China or Saudi Arabia or the
• 18:51
  Mideast or Africa or whatever. It's a supernatural Kingdom that
• 18:56
  Christ is going to bring forth when he returns again.
• 19:00
  And that's what our eyes need to be on, not what happens 2 years
• 19:03
  from now in Washington. Now I have my desires and you do
• 19:07
  too. But whether they come to pass or
• 19:09
  not is immaterial to the Kingdom of God.
• 19:12
  Because Christ said He will build His church and the gates
• 19:14
  of hell will not prevail against it.
• 19:18
  His church isn't dependent upon Republicans or Democrats or
• 19:22
  communists or socialists. His Kingdom is rooted in
• 19:26
  supernatural power. He said His Kingdom will come
• 19:32
  and when His Kingdom comes, it'll last forever.
• 19:35
  There will be no war, no nation, no person, no leader that can
• 19:39
  tear or destroy or circumvent the Kingdom of God.
• 19:45
  And so all this upheaval that's happening throughout the ages in
• 19:49
  the book of the Acts to the day that we live now, people are
• 19:52
  paranoid about people like us that have a stand for the Lord
• 19:58
  Jesus. And so they were.
• 20:02
  Saying that there's another King Jesus.
• 20:05
  Well, yeah, King Jesus, He is the King of kings and the Lord
• 20:10
  of Lords. He's been that before the
• 20:12
  foundation of the earth, and that's his throne.
• 20:16
  And he's on the throne in spite of what we see happening in this
• 20:20
  world today. His will will be done as it is
• 20:25
  in heaven. It will be done on earth.
• 20:27
  He promises that in his prayer, the Lord's Prayer.
• 20:32
  And so they're having to listen to this nonsense of this crowd,
• 20:39
  these authorities at the time and these comments that are
• 20:42
  being made. And as they're saying this, it
• 20:45
  says in verse 8, and they troubled the crowd and the
• 20:48
  rulers of this city when they heard these things.
• 20:51
  So they're really getting uptight.
• 20:53
  We got a problem here. There's an insurrection going on
• 20:56
  there. They want to bring down Caesar
• 20:58
  and they're thinking mentally, if Caesar is diminished in the
• 21:02
  eyes of the city of Thessalonica, they'll lose all
• 21:05
  the benefits of being part of the Roman Empire.
• 21:08
  It was all self-serving politics.
• 21:11
  So when they then took security from Jason and the rest, they
• 21:15
  let them go. So the whole deal was Jason had
• 21:17
  to give them a certain amount of money, promising them that he
• 21:21
  would get Paul and Silas out of the community and then he get
• 21:25
  his money back. So verse 10, then the brethren
• 21:28
  immediately send Paul and Silas away by night to Berea.
• 21:32
  So I don't want to lose any money here.
• 21:34
  Paul and Silas, you know you. I mean, we're glad you're here,
• 21:36
  but you're probably better off going on down the road now,
• 21:39
  going somewhere else. So when they arrived, they went
• 21:41
  into the synagogue of the Jews and now they're in this place
• 21:46
  called Berea, this other city, these people in Berea it says in
• 21:51
  verse 11, very powerful comment made about these people.
• 21:56
  May it be said of us these were more fair minded than those in
• 21:59
  Thessalonica and that they received the Word with all
• 22:03
  readiness and search the Scriptures daily to find out
• 22:06
  whether these things were so. We need to be Bereans.
• 22:13
  I'm thankful for the focus that Calvary Chapel has around the
• 22:18
  world and their churches to go through the Bible
• 22:21
  systematically, verse by verse, line upon line, precept upon
• 22:25
  precept. I don't have the right or the
• 22:27
  privilege to make it up as I go or to go somewhere that the
• 22:31
  Bible doesn't tell us to go. You know, we're locked into a
• 22:36
  responsibility as teachers to teach the whole council of God.
• 22:41
  And the privilege of being able to do that is we learn things
• 22:46
  like we're learning today. And I hate to say it, but in
• 22:49
  most churches today you will not hear this kind of teaching. 30
• 22:54
  years ago, a lot of the Bible churches taught this way.
• 22:58
  Nowadays there's less and less. It says in the last days there
• 23:01
  will be a famine for the word of God.
• 23:05
  Men will be lovers in themselves rather than lovers of God and
• 23:09
  it'll be hard to find places that teach sound doctrine.
• 23:13
  And so these Bereans were already developed by the power
• 23:18
  of God to does not take anything they heard lightly and say,
• 23:21
  well, this guy taught this. He seems to know the Bible.
• 23:25
  So I guess it's true. You have to know the Bible like
• 23:30
  I'm responsible to know the Bible.
• 23:33
  All of you guys are responsible to know the Scriptures so that
• 23:37
  when you're listening, if something's going the wrong way,
• 23:41
  you're going to know right away it's going the wrong way.
• 23:44
  It's going to convict you. It's going sideways.
• 23:46
  It's not true, and you're going to hold the teacher accountable
• 23:51
  to something that they taught that isn't founded in the
• 23:54
  scriptures. Thanks for joining us on this
• 23:58
  journey through Acts. On today's edition of Living
• 24:01
  Waters of Grace, Pastor Clark shares that one of the most
• 24:04
  remarkable things about the book of Acts it's how it shows the
• 24:08
  disciples transformation. The followers of Jesus we meet
• 24:12
  here are very different from the often confused and fearful
• 24:17
  disciples in the Gospels. After Jesus's death and
• 24:21
  resurrection, and especially through the power of the Holy
• 24:24
  Spirit, the apostles experienced a profound change in their
• 24:29
  hearts and boldness. Their faith became unwavering,
• 24:33
  and they moved forward with courage to spread the gospel
• 24:36
  despite opposition and hardship. Acts reminds us that the same
• 24:41
  Spirit who empowered them is at work in US today, shaping our
• 24:46
  hearts and giving us strength to live boldly for Christ.
• 24:50
  Living Waters of Grace is a ministry of Calvary Chapel
• 24:53
  Westmoreland. If you're in the Greensburg, PA
• 24:56
  area, we invite you to join us this Sunday at 10:30 AM at 400 E
• 25:02
  Pittsburgh St. Unit 6B.
• 25:04
  Visit calvarychapelonline.com For more information where you
• 25:09
  can also join our e-mail list, submit prayer requests, give
• 25:13
  online and download our mobile app.
• 25:17
  If you are in the Greensburg area, you can listen to Grace FM
• 25:20
  on the new 91.7 frequency. Pray about helping support the
• 25:25
  new station that will reach thousands more listeners.
• 25:28
  Send gifts to Grace FMPO Box 716, Greensburg, PA 15601.
• 25:36
  If you can join us in person, you can subscribe to the Calvary
• 25:39
  Chapel Westmoreland YouTube channel so you'll be alerted
• 25:42
  when new material becomes available.
• 25:45
  We're so grateful that you joined us today in Acts.
• 25:48
  TuneIn again soon for another edition of Living Waters of
• 25:51
  Grace.