This is Living Waters of Grace, the teaching ministry of Clark
Wofford, senior pastor of Calvary Chapel of Westmoreland,
County of Greensburg, PA. Now here's Pastor Clark as he
continues teaching through God's Word.
Paul was known for not wanting to ever build on another man's
foundation. Paul wouldn't be interested in
going back to Jerusalem at the time because the church was
everywhere in Jerusalem, but he was always interested in going
to the regions beyond. Matter of fact, it tells us in
Romans that he did not want to build on another man's
foundation. He always wanted to see a fresh
new work of the Holy Spirit where people would come to
Christ who never even heard of Jesus Christ.
They're all kinds of people get into missions, work, whether
they're going in to support an existing project or going to
start a new community of believers at a place that has
never heard the gospel. In today's message, Pastor Clark
teaches you about the apostle Paul as he relied on God's
guidance to know where to go next in his missionary journeys.
There are also unreached people in your own community, people
who are desperately seeking the kind of hope that only Jesus can
provide. Now here's Pastor Clark in the
book of Acts Chapter 16 with today's edition of Living Waters
of Grace. We are in the book of Acts
today, Acts chapter 16. We studied about the falling out
that Paul and Barnabas had in regards to their ministry
relationship of so many years together.
Very sad. And yet the Lord's work
continues regardless of who continues on with you or with me
or with the church or whatever. When we're called to do what
we're called to do, we keep going on no matter what happens,
what the opposition is, what the slander is, what the setbacks
are. We keep standing on what it is
that God's called us to do, and perseverance in the midst of
challenge and difficulty in ministry is something we're all
called to. Perseverance in situations of
challenges, whether they are in marriage or family or home or
work or whatever. We don't give up.
We just keep doing what it is we're called to do and what we
believe the Bible teaches us to do.
And this is what we see occurring in this 16th chapter
of Acts. I'm sure Paul had a sad heart
after all this happened. Nonetheless, he was called to go
with others to follow up on the churches that had heard the
gospel where people had become believers.
And this is five years after the first missionary journey and we
see in the this 16th chapter, verse one.
Then he came to Derby and Lystra and behold, a certain disciple
was there named Timothy, the son of a certain Jewish woman who
believed that his father was Greek.
He was well spoken of by the brethren who were at Lystra on
Iconium, and so Paul wanted to have him go with him.
This is very interesting when you study these cities and he'd
take a couple of minutes to find out where these places are.
What's fascinating here is that most of these areas we're
reading about in chapter 16 are in the country of Turkey and
Turkey today is the most godless nation.
It's primarily Islam, Muslim. And you wonder how in the world
did the Christian Church, you know, become so weak in this
particular region of the world today, primarily through
persecution and martyrdom. This is what occurred and Islam
became a very, very prominent religion in that region and
still is today, is a very small section of modern Turkey today
that is Christian, primarily Eastern Orthodox, where the
patriarch of Constantinople lives.
And they used to have all this ground and now it's relegated to
a very small footprint with fences around that.
It's just a very, very sad. But anyway, Derby and Lystra
Lifestar was a place where Paul and Barnabas preached, and they
had miracles occurring and people were becoming believers,
and they started idolizing these guys and setting them up as
though they were like Greek gods.
So they got out of town quick whenever that crazy stuff
started happening. So Pauls running into the sky,
Timothy, years ago, Paul was in that area and he was getting
stoned and having all kind of problems with people persecuting
him and wanting to get him out of town, shut him up from
preaching the gospel. Eunice and Lois was Timothy's
mother and grandmother, and they discipled Timothy and the ways
of Judaism at the time, and they were devout believers in the God
of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. Well, when Paul came and
preached the gospel there in that region, grandmother and
mother became believers, and then eventually Timothy did too.
So Timothy probably remembered the tremendous testimony of Paul
and his ability to preach and the influence he had in that
region where many people became believers at the time.
Timothy's mother was a Hellenistic Jew.
His father was Greek. So there's a complication here
because even though Timothy isn't perhaps committed to
Judaism, he is going to begin to be someone who influences Jews.
And so Paul had to do something very interesting here.
Now, if you remember last week and the week before, we were
studying about the council they had in Jerusalem.
It was the first ecumenical council where they apostles had
to sit down and discuss what was the key necessary ingredients
for someone to become a true believer.
And the Galatian people and the Judaizers, these are legalistic
Jews, were telling Gentile Christians that they had to be
circumcised in order to be saved.
Well, this is totally untrue. And so it was a heresy.
And so the leaders of the Church of Time, and of course Paul and
Barnabas, they went up to Jerusalem to meet with the
leaders and they sat and they prayed and they discussed.
They had some contentious arguments with some of these
legalistic Jews, Jewish people, and finally they came to the
realization that there was nothing that anybody had to do
to be saved but to believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and be
saved. And then when they were
believers and they became baptized, but it was faith alone
in Christ, alone by grace alone that caused people to become
born again. And so now we see something
interesting here. Paul saw the credibility of
Timothy. Now, Timothy's a young man, he's
got good influence among the body of Christ in this region.
At the time, it says he was well spoken of by the brethren who
were at Lystra and Iconium. So Paul wanted to use Timothy
now as a partner in the ministry to raise, raise him up.
Like we noticed certain young guys that come into this church
here and they become part of it. We see the potential they have.
And Pastor Lewis and myself, we won't be here forever.
There's got to be someone down the road that begins to lead and
take this church over when we're no longer on the scene.
And so you constantly they got to be open and looking for
people that God is raising up that are strong young Christians
and have a desire to live for Christ.
And so in order for Paul to have Timothy go with him, it says he
took him and circumcised him because of the Jews who were in
that region, for they all knew that his father was Greek.
It just stops there. You might say, well, they had to
go around Paul and Silas now to all these different churches and
explain to everybody that this need for circumcision is
counterproductive. There's no purpose in it.
It doesn't accomplish anything. And yet Paul understood this
idea of becoming all things to all men.
This wasn't a thing about salvation.
Or Timothy wasn't qualified because he wasn't circumcised,
but in order to go into the synagogue and be able to preach,
which Paul was able to go in many times and accepted because
he was born a Jew, he was a Pharisee, he had been
circumcised, and he did all that religious stuff of Judaism.
So even though they knew Paul was different now in regards to
the things he believed, he was still respected in the
synagogues and accepted. And so as a result of that, he
had now to make sure that Timothy had this covering, so to
speak, this endorsement. So when he brought Timothy into
the synagogues around the Jewish people, they wouldn't just stop
listening because, quote, he wasn't circumcised.
So that was the reason Paul did this.
It wasn't compromising the message that they had received
from the council in Jerusalem with the elders there.
So he took him and and circumcised him because of the
Jews who were in that region for they all knew that his father
was Greek. Something that's interesting.
I don't want to gross you out or anything, but you know,
circumcision, you guys know what it is.
Paul circumcised him. I don't know if Doctor Luke was
arrived at the time and he said Luke, who wrote Acts, could you
take care of this for me? There's no way I wouldn't
circumcise myself, let alone anyone else.
I mean, that's dangerous. What if they bleed to death or
something? But anyway, that's just a
sideline in my own mind. And so as they went through the
cities, they delivered to them the decrees to keep, which were
determined by the apostles and elders of Jerusalem.
So they went out and visited the church.
We got good news, guys, you don't have to be circumcised as
Gentiles. Your salvation, your faith in
Christ is enough. Enjoy your life and the Lord and
just keep following him. So they were spreading this good
news about the decree and they also were looking at the
churches in regard to what they needed.
It says in verse five. So the churches were
strengthened and the faith and increase number daily.
And so the purpose of this ministry of Paul and Silas, and
now Timothy going with him, was to go in the places and visit
the churches and to speak to them and encourage the elders
about the things of God so that the church would get stronger
and stronger. And as it became stronger and
stronger, it became more influential in the city, in the
culture, in the society, and it grew and more and more believers
were coming into the church. And then it continues in verse
6, the Macedonian call. Now when they had gone through
the Phrygia and the region of Galatia, they were forbidden by
the Holy Spirit to preach the word in Asia.
This is interesting. Paul the really the first time
in the book of the Acts that he was prevented and forbidden to
do something that he believed he was supposed to do.
He had a heart, Paul, always to go to places where the gospel
had never been preached, to go and tell people who never heard
about what it is that we know is Christians.
And Asia is one of the most populous places in the known
world at the time and even today.
And so if you were going to go preach, you would want to preach
in the places that had the most people to be able to potentially
hear the truth. But for whatever reason, he was
prevented from doing this at this time.
After they'd come to Mycia, they tried to go into Bithynia, but
the spirit did not permit them. Again, this is northern regions
of Turkey. And so passing by Mycia, they
came down to Troas, and a vision appeared to Paul.
In the night. A man of Macedonia stood and
pleaded with him, saying, come over to Macedonia and help us.
Now after he had seen the vision, immediately we sought to
go to Macedonia, concluding that the Lord had called us to preach
the gospel to them. We see here in this section of
Scripture that the will of God overcomes the will of man.
Many times we think we should do something and we want to do it,
and we justify it in our minds and we think it's right because
we believe maybe the Lord spoke to us or gave us a word or we
have some kind of insight or some kind of direction that what
we're going to do is from the Lord.
But when it isn't from the Lord, God speaks to us, and He speaks
to us primarily through the Scriptures, sometimes through
other people that might challenge you about something
you're thinking of doing or possibly considering.
The Holy Spirit himself can give you a dream or a vision that's
obviously potentially available at times as well.
But in this instance, we have someone who was an apostle that
God told him no. And we think while the apostles,
they never miss God, they always did everything that was right
and they never made mistakes. Well, there was mistakes made as
I'd spoke in regard to that relationship that Paul and
Barnabas had together. It was a bad falling out.
It wasn't a good mark on Paul's history of his ministry, nor
Barnabas. It's a black mark on their
history. And nonetheless, God allowed it.
And so now Paul is having this struggle.
Now I think we should go to to Asia and we should preach the
gospel there. And he probably had all the
plans, everybody on board, everybody's ready to go.
And then this vision happens and now the Holy Spirit is
forbidding him to go there and now he's got to go to Macedonia.
So people might say to him and his leadership, but what are you
double minded? Don't you hear from God?
Are you not sure about what you're supposed to do?
Why is it that you were so focused on Asia and now you're
not going to go? What's this idea of a vision?
How do you know it was from God? How do you, you know, all those
kind of thought processes in our human minds would probably occur
at that time as well, and maybe people questioning what this was
all about. Fortunately, there wasn't a lot
of people in this committee. There was Timothy, Paul and
Silas at this point in time. So Paul had seen this vision and
immediately they sought to go to Macedonia.
Macedonia is in Greece, not too far from Thessaloniki, and we
have missionaries we support there, the Jacksons, and we just
love them and love the work they do there.
They're primarily ministering to communities, are influenced by
Islam, very, very challenging ministry.
And but This is why they did it. They concluded that the Lord had
called us to preach the gospel to them.
When you look at the world today and the number of places that
still are without the gospel missionaries, when they're in
candidate school and their training to plan where they
might possibly want to be missionaries, they pray.
They usually have a big map, a world map, and they'll look at
the people groups and they'll look at the percentages of
unreached people who have never heard the gospel or areas where
it's really difficult to get the gospel in.
Most missionaries are a different breed of people and
they are adventures. They're pioneers.
They're not afraid of challenges.
A matter of fact, they enjoy challenge and they look for
opportunities to go to places that no one else goes to.
And Paul was known for not wanting to ever build on another
man's foundation. Paul wouldn't be interested in
going back to Jerusalem at the time because the church was
everywhere in Jerusalem, but he was always interested in going
to the regions beyond. Matter of fact, it tells us in
Romans that he did not want to build on another man's
foundation. He always wanted to see a fresh
new work of the Holy Spirit where people would come to
Christ who never even heard of Jesus Christ.
Cindy and I were with an organization when we were first
married and it's called Ethos 360 now, but they specialize in
reaching unreached people groups in in tribal areas.
And so there was all kind of places that they were working
in. And I sort of had a hidden
agenda. I wanted to find a climate like
Hawaii. If I was going to be a
missionary, I wanted to go to a place that would be nice.
I didn't want to go to the Sepi River basin and and New Guinea
and get malaria and all those other things, get eaten up by
crocodiles and all kind of other weird animals and insects and
die. So I looked on the map and I
thought, wow, Indonesia, that's very similar to like Hawaii
weather. So, but nonetheless, I, I never
even got to Indonesia because I didn't know how to build a
jungle Hut or kill any animal or, you know, do any kind of
building. When you're a tribal missionary
like the Dawsons that we support in Venezuela, they had to go and
as babies, they grew up in that field and they're still there
now. Their parents are with the Lord,
but they went there in the 50s. Everything is, you know, brand
new all the time. Like, how do we reach these
people up the river that have never heard the gospel?
Got to get in a boat and figure out how to get up there and get
up there safely, missing the piranhas and the crocodiles and
the poisonous arrows at the tribal.
People try to shoot at you because they think you're going
to take advantage of them. But these missionaries are
pioneers, and they go and they sacrifice.
And many times they sacrifice their laws as Jim Elliott did.
Jim Elliott, he was the guy that said he has no fool to lose, but
he cannot keep to gain, but he cannot lose.
But it's interesting. A week before he was going to go
reach those AKA Indians, him and his friends, he was tempted to
not go. He was afraid.
He thought about his family and he is this really worth it?
But he ended up going and he ended up being martyred, him and
the rest of the guys. When you think about Paul and
Barnabas and Timothy and Paul was eventually martyred.
We get like this inside. Look at what it was like to live
as these pioneers. We get to read it and
participate in it and for reflect on it and meditate on it
and perhaps somehow living in a small way in the areas that we
live and where we come from, because there's unreached people
group right in Greensburg, PA, There's people, believe it or
not, that know nothing about Jesus Christ.
And you might say, well, how in America could you be here and
not know anything about the gospel?
What's because of where we are today as a nation, people and
these young people. When I grew up as a Pagan, at
least I knew that there was a God.
I believed that there was a Jesus.
I believe that the Bible was true, but I wasn't born again
yet, but I had that basic worldview.
Now you talk to young people. Do you know anything about Jesus
Christ or the Bible or God or the Trinity or the the cross or
the resurrection? They look at you like deer in
the headlight. They have no idea what you're
talking about. So you're starting back to
square 1. And it can be dangerous,
especially now if you aggressively proclaim the
gospel. There's beginning to be
persecution in our country and Canada.
Pastors that preach out against abortion, our same sex marriages
are being in prison. How soon will that be here in
our country? This is all involved in this
missionary vision. So Paul is going to go to
Macedonia now. And we continue in verse 11,
this woman by the name of Lydia, she's baptized at Philippi.
Philippi is a a wonderful region, opportunity for a new
church. Not a whole lot of Jewish
people. There was no synagogue there
because you needed ten men who were part of the synagogue in
order to have a legitimate synagogue.
So you'll see, it's interesting here that there is no synagogue.
They're meeting down by the river.
So therefore, sailing from Troas, we ran a straight course
as some Moth, and the next day came to Indianapolis and there
to Philippi, which is the former city of that part of Macedonia,
a colony. So they're in Greece now.
And we were staying in that city for some days, and on the
Sabbath day we went out of the city to the Riverside.
Now, normally in the Sabbath day, Paul and Silas and Timothy
would have gone into the synagogue to preach, but there
was no synagogue there. So they went out of the city to
the Riverside, where prayer was customarily made, and we sat
down and spoke to the women who met there.
Now, the rabbi said, it's better to have the law burn than to
deliver the Torah to women. That's how discriminating and
discussing the culture was toward women at the time,
especially in Judaism and the rabbi's.
There was a low level of esteem for women, which Paul certainly
doesn't have here. And now a certain woman named
Lydia heard us. She was a seller of purple from
the city of Thyrotyra, who worship God.
Thyrotyra is this community, the city that's known for
development of purple and dyed material, garments and clothing.
And so she's probably got an office down here now in
Philippi, following up that she's a very successful
businesswoman. And they're down there
worshiping God, but they're not worshiping the truth about God
yet because they don't know it. But they're there in their
religious form of trying to develop this encounter with the
living God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.
And then it says the Lord opened her heart to heed the things
spoken by Paul. So Paul's preaching the gospel,
and all of a sudden she's recognizing that there's
something missing in her understanding of God.
And her heart became convicted, and she began to become drawn to
the gospel. And the Lord opened her heart to
heed, to obey, to follow the things spoken by Paul.
And it's like anywhere you go here today, your home, your
community, your workplace, you share the Lord with people as
you have opportunity to. Lord opens doors for you.
You can't make anybody believe. You can't force anybody to
understand the truth. You have to have patience and
you have to understand that only the Lord can open the heart for
people to believe. That's our job.
We're to pray and pray, Lord, open the hearts of those who
come here to hear your voice, to believe Your word, to follow
you. And the Lord will do that.
His word is not without power. It's sharper than any 2 edged
sword. It's able to divide us under the
soul and the spirit, and is very discerner of the thoughts and
intents of the heart. Even today, your mind might be
drifting. You're thinking about all kinds
of things, but God will take something from His Word and
Pierce your heart with it, convict you, challenge you, make
you think about Him more. Thank you for listening to this
edition of Living Waters of Grace.
Pastor Clark is teaching us about the book of Acts in this
series. Acts is a powerful and unique
part of Scripture, not just because it records the spread of
the gospel geographically from Jerusalem to the ends of the
earth, but also culturally. Acts shows us how the message of
Jesus moved beyond its Jewish roots and began to reach the
Gentile world. What started with Peter leading
a small group in the upper room became a global movement, with
Paul taking the gospel to cities, synagogues, and
marketplaces across the Roman Empire.
Acts captures this vital transition and reminds us that
the good news of Jesus is for all people in every place.
May we be inspired to carry that same gospel boldly into our
world today. Living Waters of Grace comes to
you from Calvary Chapel, Westmoreland.
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