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