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.
Verse 18 Now for a time of about 40 years, we know they wandered
for 40 years in the wilderness sort of listening and not
listening, thanking God and complaining about things that
sound familiar if you ever do that.
I've been on the planet 71 years and I got my years of
complaining and whatever and then thanking God.
But it says He put up with their ways in the wilderness.
Isn't that wonderful that God puts up with us?
He doesn't give up on us. Pastor Clark just gave us
another way of God extending His grace to us.
Putting up with us. The holiness of God is something
we can't even fathom, and sometimes it really does feel
that way. God is putting up with us.
Well, there certainly is some truth to that.
We need to pause and ask the question, why does God put up
with me? It's because He loves me.
God's great love for me is what motivates him in everything that
he does in my life. Today.
You'll learn more about how God works in your life now.
Here's Pastor Clark in Acts Chapter 13 with today's edition
of Living Waters of Grace. Let's look at in the book of the
Acts, Acts chapter 13. And I'm really excited about
this chapter because I don't know about you, but sometimes I,
I forget the awesomeness and the simplicity of the gospel of
Jesus Christ. I get caught up in life and
teachings and Bible study and all that.
And it seems like the gospel. We all hopefully know it by now
if we've been Christians for any length of time.
But it takes on different layers, doesn't it?
As you get to know Christ better, it becomes deeper and
more precious and more living and alive.
We have to think about the Apostle Paul briefly, because he
was against the gospel. He persecuted Christians.
He hated the movement of Christianity.
What didn't accept Christ, didn't believe, you know, tried
to do everything he could to destroy this movement that can't
be destroyed. Over the last 2000 years, it
keeps growing exponentially all around the world.
And many of us here today have been recipients.
We've received this gospel and it's it's changed our lives and
continually changes our lives. But the transformation of Paul's
life, we read about what he does and his exploits and the
suffering he goes through being an apostle, the rejection, the
stoning, the imprisonment. People would ask him, why, Why
do you do this? And he said, it's the love of
Christ that constrains me. He was so compelled to share
what it is that Lewis and I and other pastors are sharing with
the congregations the good news of the gospel.
And so when we read this and study this, keep in mind that
there is this compelling internal work of God in the
apostle to share this message, this story, over and over and
over again. And it's what compels Pastor
Lewis and myself. No matter what is going on in
life, in the world, in our own personal lives, we can't wait to
get here to tell you more about Jesus.
And that's what we're called to do.
And we're thankful that you embrace that or you wouldn't be
here today. So it starts in verse 13 of
chapter 13, when Paul and his party set sail from Paphos.
They came to Purga and Pamphylia and John departing from them,
returned to Jerusalem, period. What happened to John?
John Mark, the one who eventually wrote the Gospel of
Mark, he's cousin of Barnabas. He's learning how to do
ministry. Young, young guy, he's with Paul
and Barnabas and all of a sudden he turns around and goes the
other way. Why did he leave the calling?
Well, it's, it's beautiful how the Holy Spirit can get into the
detail right here about the conflict that occurred between
basically Paul and John. Maybe some people think that
John was a little bit overwhelmed with the pressures
of the ministry. He began to see the potential of
losing maybe his life and the persecution, being imprisoned,
stoned. Maybe he was sort of
disappointed. It used to say Barnabas and
Paul. Now it's Paul and company.
Paul's taking on the the influence of the leader, and
maybe he didn't like that and he wanted Barnabas to continually
sort of head these mission situations up.
Maybe he was as homesick and he wanted to get back home.
Some people believe because he was a devout Jew, that he didn't
like this idea of Gentiles getting into the Kingdom so
easily when they had to follow the law throughout the Old
Testament and do all the rituals and kosher foods and all that.
No longer is that important anymore.
It's just faith alone in Christ alone by grace alone.
Some people think that maybe he went back to Jerusalem and got
people stirred up to the Judaizers that Paul had to deal
with in the book of Galatians to tell the people that there's
only one gospel. It's not a gospel of works plus
grace. It's a gospel of grace alone
completely. And that's hard for religious
people to accept that we can be forgiven of every sin that we
possibly could commit yesterday, the day and forever and go to
heaven because of what Christ has done for us as we asked him
to forgive us. A lot of people can't be that
easy. I felt.
I asked you guys to pray about, pray for that.
I met in Lancaster, had dinner with him again, and started this
building upon the relationship. He's still not a customer, and
he's hard guy to be around because he's just so lost in the
darkness and the drinking and the tragedies of his own life.
And we went to a restaurant. So we began to talk about trials
and difficulties of life. And he was surprised that I have
them too. He just thought that he had.
And we all have them, right? And as we begin to talk, I
shared with him that the only way I can get through life every
day is by being close to Jesus. And he said, I need to start
wearing sunglasses to our dinner because he's sobbing as we're
talking, you know, And so when we were all done, I, I said, you
know, this is more important to me than business, seeing you
come to know Jesus. So I said, I got something for
you in the car. So I went out to the van and
gave him one of our Bibles that we have to give away to people
in the Bible promise handbook. And he gave me a big hug.
So please continually pray for Mark and, and the people I know
that you're burdened for you're trying to share the good news of
the gospel with. We just plant the seed and God
is the one that increases and gives the harvest, right?
And so I pray for Mark as well. So it it stops there and it
continues. But one thing to to think about
and we'll get there later on that in chapter 15, Barnabas and
Paul had a falling out. Be like Lewis and me having a
falling out. One week I'm here and he's not
here. And the next week or maybe after
that, he's here and I'm not here.
What happened to Clark? Well, we had a falling out.
I mean, boy, that that's doesn't sound good in the church, does
it? Doesn't sound good as brothers
and sisters in Christ. But it happens.
Relationships get rocky sometimes and the devil always
wants to sow discord or disagreement among the brothers
and sisters is to split the church or the, you know, scatter
the sheep. It just happens.
It's one of the more heart wrenching things.
And so Barnabas, you know, he, he takes off and he goes his own
way. Eventually, you know, he works
with John and others and, and Paul ends up working with Silas
and eventually he ends up with Timothy.
But the good news is, is in the book of Second Timothy, chapter
4, I'm just going to read that real quick because this will
segue into the rest of the place.
We're heading Second Timothy 4 verse 6.
This is Paul. He's getting ready to pass from
this life. He's he's fought the good fight.
He he's finishing his his ministry.
He says in verse 6 from already being poured out as a drink
offering and the time of my departure is in hand.
I've fought the good fight, I've finished the race, I've kept the
faith. Finally there is laid up for me
the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous
judge will give to me on that day, and not to me only, but
also to all who loved disappearing.
And then he says be diligent to come to me quickly for Demas,
and this is someone else that was in the ministry had says
forsaken me having loved this present world and has departed
for Thessalonica Creations for Galatia, Titus for Dalmatia.
Only Luke is with me and Luke was a physician.
Mark had issues of illness and disease and other problems like
malaria, he said. But then he says get Mark and
bring him with you for he is useful to me for ministry.
Isn't that beautiful? The falling out is no longer a
falling out. There's reconciliation, they're
doing ministry again together, they're serving together again.
And that's the Lord's intention all the time.
Sometimes we have to give one another space and pray and wait
on the Lord for the reconciliations to occur,
whether it's in church or business or family or sons and
daughters or you know whatever right marriages.
We we have to trust God to do the work that only he can do and
so that that encourages me because if you just stop there
and think well, what in the deal is up with Mark and Paul.
The good news is it didn't stay that way and you always pray
that relationships can be re established and us personally
have responsibility to be humble and forgiving and not keep a
record of offenses are wrong. Like Corinthians tells us, First
Corinthians 13, love doesn't keep a record of wrong.
So when we have our hearts clear and we're not thinking about
things that have occurred to us from other people or whatever,
we're able to wait on the Lord and and let it go until God does
something. So they depart for Purga and
they come to Antioch and Pasidia and this is about 100 miles
north. It's quite a trek.
They go up about 3600 feet high elevation.
Paul was struggling at the time with his health and some people
believed he had malaria. So he had to get into more
comfortable climate conditions to continue the work and after.
So they they go into the synagogue.
And what's interesting, when Paul was doing the missionary
journeys, he was very strategic. He looked for cities of
influence to start with. And cities of influence would
always at least have 11 synagogue.
And so because he was a Pharisee, a member of the
Sanhedrin, he had academic credentials.
He was schooled by Gamaliel, and everybody respected his
background. And a lot of people didn't know
at this point his conversion. But he's in the synagogue with
Barnabas, who came from Cyprus, and also a very stellar
intellectual in regard to theology.
They're there and they're like celebrities in the synagogue
and, and so they, they normally have their readings and
writings, reading the prophets and all the history of, of the
Bible teaching in the Old Testament that Messiah would one
day come and save Israel. There they are visiting not to
be critical, but they're there to share the good news.
So because of their degrees and their knowledge and their
expertise and respect from Jerusalem, they're wow,
someone's here from Jerusalem. Let's let's see if they want to
tell us some stuff. So they give them the, the
platform to to begin to talk and little did they know what was
going to begin to be talked about.
And that's the, this is Paul's first sermon in the book of the
Acts. It's very similar to Peter's
first sermon. And also Stephen, the one who
was martyred that take the history of Israel.
And what happened is Israel moved through the process of
being delivered out of Egypt into eventually the promised
land and then the history of what they had to deal with in
their rebellion and their backsliding and their own
unbelief. And so Paul's going to review
some things with them. And so he says they're there on
the Sabbath day. And after the reading of the law
and the prophets, which was traditional in the synagogue,
verse 15, the rulers of the synagogue sent to them saying,
men and brethren, if you have any word of exhortation for the
people, say on. So they just didn't interrupt
the meeting. They were invited to talk about
what it is that they wanted to talk about.
Then Paul stood up and motioning with his hand.
Men of Israel, and you who fear God, listen.
So the respect of the Jewish people and their religion, men
of Israel. And then there would be
gentiles. There are those that are fearing
God, haven't embraced Judaism fully, but they're interested.
They're there in the in the meeting because they're
interested. You're here today in this
meeting because obviously you're interested in learning more
about the Lord and following him or why would you be here, right?
So the God of this people, this is Paul's message.
Israel chose our fathers and exalted the people when they
dwelt as strangers in the land of Egypt, and when with an
uplifted arm he brought them out of it.
And we know Moses raised his staff, the water separated and
and the sea, and they were able to escape the attack of the
wicked Pharaoh. And the Lord delivered him out
of that bondage in Egypt, that terrible place to be where they
were abused and taken advantage of and this terrible, terrible
existence. Verse 18.
Now for a time of about 40 years, we know they wandered for
40 years in the wilderness, sort of listening and not listening,
thanking God and complaining about things that sound familiar
if you ever do that. I've been on the planet 71 years
and I've got my years of complaining and whatever and
then thanking God. But it says He put up with their
ways in the wilderness. Isn't that wonderful that God
puts up with us? He doesn't give up on us.
And verse 19 and when he had destroyed seven nations in the
land of Canaan, he distributed their land to them by allotment.
So we know when Joshua went in to the, you know, promised land,
he was instructed because Moses had been taken off the scene
then. And they did battle and they had
wars and and they eventually conquered and they had all this
real estate that God promised prophetically that would be the
inheritance of the the 12 tribes of Israel.
And so this, the history and and these guys in the synagogue know
this stuff. This has never been anything
they never heard of before. After that, verse 20, he gave
them judges for about 450 years. So the judges were set up to
roll on issues of law and morality and justice and that
kind of stuff and never really worked out that well because
you'd have good judges. You have bad judges just like we
have good presidents, bad presidents.
I mean, you know it, it just happens, right?
So until Samuel the prophet came along and when Samuel the
prophet came along in verse 21 and afterward they asked for
king. So they're asking pray and
asking for king. We need to be have someone in
charge here instead of a group of these judges.
So God gave them Saul the son of Kish, a man of the tribe of
Benjamin for 40 years. And when he removed him, now
Saul was not a good king. And you can read the history the
guys are teaching through the Old Testament on Wednesday
nights and they really cover it very, very detailed like we do
Sunday morning in the New Testament, that the history of
Saul was completely corrupt. So God eventually removed him.
Then he raised up for them David as king, King David.
Everybody knows about David, right?
You learn about David and Sunday school, David and Goliath.
What do you, what do you think about when you hear the word
David? I think more about David and
Bathsheba. What happened there?
Then David and Goliath and David and Bathsheba committed adultery
and they ended up having a tremendous heartache in the
nation of Israel because of that.
And eventually David admitted to his sin when Nathan came to him
and about a year after the event, but not only did David
commit adultery, he set up Uriah, her husband in battle to
be killed. So David is an adulterer and a
murderer. And the Lord says about him, he
gave testimony and said, I have found David the son of Jesse, a
man after my own heart who will do my will.
David failed as many of us have failed in many different ways in
our life. But God knows our hearts.
None of us are perfect. He knows that we draw near to
Him and the times of difficulty. When we make mistakes, we don't
justify them and are proud and ignore the work of the Holy
Spirit. If we're really saved, the Holy
Spirit's in us. He begins to tell us why there's
problems or what needs to be addressed.
In Psalm 51 is written where you can see the desperation of David
crying out to God for his sin. Oh Lord, restore to me the joy
of my salvation. Take not thy Holy Spirit from
me, created me a clean heart of God, and renew a steadfast
spirit within me. Then I'll teach transgressors
your ways, and sinners shall be converted to you.
And farther on down than that Psalm, it says a broken and a
contrite heart God will not despise.
And so whenever we allow God to show us our issues every day,
this is something I want to deal with, or this is something that
needs to be corrected, or this is he, he, he's our God, the
Holy Spirit and he, he leads us if we were willing to listen to
what it is that God requires of us.
And it's always the challenge of changing our mind from one thing
to what it is that God wants. That's repentance.
It's not like groveling or beating ourselves up or woe is
me kind of thing. It's just like, Lord, I hear
you. I need to make this right.
I need to stop this thing. I need to forgive this person.
I need to worship you. I mean, whatever it might be, a
host of things that you and I hear every day.
And whenever we hear the voice of God, we have one or two
decisions to make. We either listen and yield, or
we just stuff it and blow it away.
And we've all been in either of those places.
We know the benefit of doing it God's way.
It really makes life a lot easier, right?
And we also know the challenge of not the one at God's way and
the consequences of what that creates in our lives and the
lives of our families and church body and and other
relationships. So whenever you see the Lord
through Paul use this verse, God wasn't saying well Dave is no
good because he did this or he wasn't able to be used by me
because he did this. David was able to continually
use be used by God even though there was consequences for his
sin in the nation to still accomplish his will through
David's life. And that should encourage you
and me. God uses imperfect people.
And if you study the Bible for any length of time, you know
that a lot of the people that are famous in the Bible didn't
have a perfect history, did they?
And so here we are today, and God wants to use our lives and
he wants to use your life in the life of someone who doesn't know
Jesus, who's broken. If you're sitting there
thinking, well, who am I to tell anybody about Jesus?
I had a terrible life and I committed terrible sins.
Well, if we are saved, we know the good news is that God
forgave us of our terrible sins, and he gave us a new heart and
he gave us a new life, right? To be able to present.
The good news of the gospel is that Christ died for sinners,
which we all are. And so it's just this beautiful.
So Paul's sermon is building on all these things.
And as David was the king, he then prophetically was the one
God used through the seed of David from this man.
See David verse 23. According to the promise God
raised up Israel up for Israel, a savior Jesus.
So Jesus is through the lineage of David through an adulterer
and a murderer. I mean you say God, why didn't
you pick someone perfect that never because well there is no
one perfect. I use people like you guys to do
my will so that when all this stuff comes through, we know
there's only one perfect 1 and that's Jesus Christ and God use
chooses to use us in this process.
After that verse 24, John had first preached John the Baptist
before his coming, the baptism of repentance that John was
challenging people to turn from their sin and turn toward
Messiah who is going to come. And many people came to that
baptism in the Jordan to be, you know, repenting, prepared for
the Lord who was to come repentance to all the people of
Israel. Verse 25 And as John was
finishing his course, he said, who do you think I am?
I am not he. Well, everybody thought John,
man, he's something else. He's out there in the
wilderness. He's not connected to this world
really. He's like a hermit.
He's just like very, very different and very godly and
very fiery in his eyes and just the passion he had for God and
nothing else. They might have thought he was
the one. Well, this guy, he's, he's
different. I mean, he's really challenging
me and my heart's convicted because of what he's saying.
He says I am not he. But behold, there comes one
after me, the sandals of whose feet I am not worthy to lose.
So you see humility in John. He didn't think he was anything.
He was just a voice in the wilderness, as the Bible says,
just like I'm a voice here today in the wilderness that we live
in today in this world, men and brethren.
Verse 26, Paul says, sons of the family of Abraham, Abraham,
Isaac, Jacob, the lineage of the nation of Israel through the
patriarchs. He's speaking to them and those
among you who fear God, the Gentiles who are sitting in the
synagogue seeking the truth. Thanks for joining us on this
journey through Acts. On today's edition of Living
Waters of Grace, Pastor Clark shares that one of the most
remarkable things about the book of Acts is how it shows the
disciples transformation. The followers of Jesus we meet
here are very different from the often confused and fearful
disciples in the Gospels. And after Jesus's death and
resurrection, and especially through the power of the Holy
Spirit, the apostles experienced a profound change in their
hearts and boldness. Their faith became unwavering,
and they move forward with courage to spread the gospel
despite opposition and hardship. Acts reminds us that the same
Spirit who empowered them is at work in US today, shaping our
hearts and giving us strength to live boldly for Christ.
Living Waters of Grace is a ministry of Calvary Chapel
Westmoreland. If you're in the Greensburg, PA
area, we invite you to join us this Sunday at 10:30 AM at 400 E
Pittsburgh St. Unit 6B.
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