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.
We think there's got to be strings attached, so there's got
to be something else other than disgrace.
And then when God's grace begins to apprehend our heart, we begin
to experience God in a way that humanly can't be comprehended
apart from grace. Grace is what gives you the
ability to forgive and forget. Grace is the ability for you to
receive forgiveness and accept the fact that Jesus did forgive
you of all your sins. The word grace comes from the
Greek word charis, which means unmerited favor and the divine
influence upon the heart as reflected in life.
Today. Pastor Clark will share many
examples of what grace is and what it looks like in the life
of a follower of Jesus. As you listen today, maybe ask
yourself, does the grace of Jesus mark my life?
And if the answer is no, then you'll want to listen to the end
of today's broadcast as Pastor Clark shares more.
When the grace of God marks your life, that same grace begins to
spill out into the lives of those around you.
You will begin to overflow. Now here's Pastor Clark in Acts
Chapter 11 with today's edition of Living Waters of Grace.
Acts Chapter 11 and we're reading about the the issue here
of Peter who had thus given the gospel to Cornelius a Gentile in
Acts chapter 10. And now Peter's heading up back
to Jerusalem and we'll see what he has to deal with here.
So it says in verse one. Now the apostles and brethren
who were in Judea heard that the Gentiles had also received the
word of God. So these guys in Jerusalem are
legalists, they're Christians, but they're under the bondage of
religion. They believe that in order to be
a real Christian, you had to be become a Jew and you had to be
circumcised, and you had to follow the traditions and the
laws of Moses in order to be a real believer.
They had prejudice against Gentiles, Jewish people and
Gentiles didn't get along back in those days.
In some cases today there's still issues between these two
races. But nonetheless, it was all
based upon this idea that this is the way you do worship, this
is the way you do faith, this is the way you follow Jesus.
And the problem in in the world of Christianity Today is that
you have all these different denominations with everybody
sort of having a preference of how things should be done.
And we need to have our hearts open to the fact that the Lord
works in many, many different churches in different ways with
the same gospel. If a church is a Bible church,
and it's a church that believes in the Trinity and the virgin
birth and the death, burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ,
and the Bible being the inherent word of God, that's the
foundation. Everything else is up to
negotiation. Whether someone uses guitars or
drums or candles or incense, those things are really
secondary, aren't they? But many times people get
uptight about different things and how people do things.
So the Jewish people here at this time were very, very
struggling in regard to Peter because he had spent time in the
House of Cornelius, Peter being Jewish, Cornelius being a
Gentile. So when Peter came up to
Jerusalem, those are the circumcision contended with him
saying you went into uncircumcised men and ate with
them. I mean, that's a big deal.
Back in those days. You do something like that.
You are going against all your core beliefs that you've ever
had as a Jewish person. And as a result, they had this
struggle and they had this difficulty.
And so Peter explained it to them in order from the
beginning, saying, I was in the city of Joppa praying and in a
trance I saw a vision and object descending like a great sheep
let down from heaven by four corners.
And it came to me. And when I observed it intently
and considered, I saw 4 footed animals of the earth, wild
beasts, creeping things, and birds of the air.
And I heard a voice saying to me, Rise, Peter, kill and eat.
But I said, not so Lord, for nothing common or unclean has at
any time entered my mouth. But the voice answered me again
from heaven. What God has cleansed you must
not call common. Now this was done three times,
and all were drawn up again into heaven.
And so we see this, this vision that Peter had, and he grew up
as a Jew. He grew up with all these
traditions and he was used to doing things a certain way.
And God is preparing him now to take the gospel to Gentile
people, to be with people that he would normally not want to be
around, that he would consider unclean.
And so God gave him this vision and, and Peter had to have
everything like 3 times. If you remember, the Lord told
him he was going to deny him three times, right?
And then after Peter's denial and he got right with God again,
the Lord asked him a question three times.
Do you love me, Peter? Sort of hard headed, right?
Thick skin or whatever you want to call it.
He just was a different kind of individual.
And the Lord had to make sure he understood this vision.
That's not one time, but three times.
So I think we're all a lot like that.
We need to hear things more than one time, especially when
they're from the Bible, because it takes a while for things to
to settle in and for us to consider what it is that the
Holy Spirit wants us to understand when we're hearing
the words, when we're reading the word, when we're being
taught the word. And so in this specific vision,
all these UN kosher animals are in this blanket and he's given
the permission by God that he can now eat these things that he
was at one time told it would be a terrible sin, an abomination
actually to eat these kind of things as a Jewish person and
even challenges the the Lord in regard to this one.
In verse 7, when the Lord says rise, Peter kill and eat, he
said, not so Lord, for nothing common or unclean has at any
time entered my mouth. But then the Lord from heaven
speaks what God has cleansed you must not call common.
So about the third time this happened, Peter began to be more
open to something. Perhaps he didn't quite
understand yet. Now you got to understand in in
the Christian life and and learning about the Lord, Not
everything dawns on us all the sudden, right?
We don't grasp everything clearly.
Many times it takes a while to really understand what the
Bible's saying in certain areas. Some things are more difficult
to understand. And a big issue in Christianity
is it's a, it's a faith and I'm going to call it a religion.
It's a movement of God's spirit, supernatural that is based upon
grace, right, based upon grace. And we're not really able to
understand grace or receive grace the way God intends us to
experience grace. Grace is liberating.
Grace is freeing. Grace is transformative.
Paul was an apostle of grace. Everything he taught is about
the grace of God. That none of us deserve
anything. None of us have the capacity to
earn anything. Grace is a gift.
And when we first hear about grace, it's almost too good to
be true. We think there's got to be
strings attached or there's got to be something else other than
disgrace. And then when God's grace begins
to apprehend our heart, we begin to experience God in a way that
humanly can't be comprehended apart from grace.
Grace is what gives you the ability to forgive and forget.
Grace is the ability for you to receive forgiveness and accept
the fact that Jesus did forgive you of all your sins.
Grace is the ability to give other people some latitude
without being critical or judgmental.
Grace is to be able to forgive a Pagan or pray for people who
don't know Christ. Grace is to be able to live in a
country that is so divided that all you want to do is think
about ways that you can tell people about Jesus.
Because that's the only answer to the unbelieving, Pagan,
immoral mindset, the grace of God.
We can't respond or behave or act any differently as a fallen
people apart from the grace of God changing our hearts and
making us like Jesus. And so Peter is now about ready
to understand grace in a way that he's never experienced
before. And so as he finishes this
vision, he's done with this vision.
It says in verse 11, soon as this vision is done in the in
the, the cloth in the blanket goes back up into heaven.
At that very moment, three men stood before the house where I
was, where he was having been sent to me from Caesarea.
Three men stood there. He just heard three times God's
truth regarding grace and three persons represents the Trinity.
It's interesting how numbers are so significant in the Bible.
The three, the Father, Son and Holy Spirit.
One, God manifests in three persons.
So there's three men standing at the house.
These men were sent from Caesarea.
These are Gentiles now up until this point, before the vision,
if they would have been at the door, he might have said, well,
nice meeting you. There's a bed and breakfast down
the road. You can go there.
I'll catch up with you later outside.
You would never invite a Gentile into your house.
That's how dark the discrimination and prejudice
was. So in verse 12 it says then the
Spirit told me to go with them, dotting nothing, doubting
nothing. He listened to the Holy Spirit
and he knew completely that this was what God had ordained him to
do, to meet these three guys and to go with him.
He was told this in the vision back in chapter 10.
We know not only did he go with them, but he invited him into
the house and he, he took care of them for a while and fed them
and, and all this bondage of prejudice was completely
destroyed and broken down, wasn't existing anymore.
Moreover, these six brethren accompanied me and we entered
the man's house. Now Peter didn't go into as much
details of what happened in chapter 10 because you got to
realize he's talking to legalists.
He's very careful in keeping the main focus of the message very
clear and simple to accept. He didn't get into the thing
that God said to Cornelius was an honorable man.
He he gave offerings or whatever.
He didn't set it up to justify anything and the and the Gentile
mindset that would be unacceptable to a Jewish
authority or Jewish spiritual leader at the time.
So Peter was wise enough when he went, he didn't go himself.
He needed some witnesses because he has to now give an account
before the leaders in Jerusalem, what he did, why he was there,
what went on, what actually happened.
And these six brethren with him were witnesses.
So we enter the man's house, verse 13, And he told us how he
had seen an Angel standing in his house, who said to him, send
men to Joppa. This is where Peter was living
with Simon the Tanner at the time, and call for Simon.
His surname is Peter. Who will tell you words by which
you and all your household will be saved.
And as I began to speak, the Holy Spirit fell upon them, is
upon us at the beginning that the irony of this whole
situation is that Peter is a apostle.
He's a preacher, He's gifted. And I'm sure he had a big plan
in this message. He might have had three points,
five points, 6 points. He was just getting started.
And the Holy Spirit fell down and said, Peter, you don't need
to say anything else. I'm going to save these people
supernaturally. And the Holy Spirit fell and
they believed and they got saved.
And I love this because Peter didn't say, Lord, I'm not done
with my message yet. Peter's learning to trust God
more obviously and depend on him more.
And so the Holy Spirit falls on these people, and he says to
these authorities in Jerusalem, what we saw, what we
experienced, me and the six witnesses and all the people in
the house, the same thing that happened to us back in Acts
chapter 1 and 2, when the Holy Spirit fell in the upper room.
And 120 people had experienced this phenomena of the baptism of
the Holy Spirit and had the evidence of that specific time
of tongues. And there was other times in
Acts where the Spirit fell that tongues weren't manifest, but
nonetheless they're a legitimate gift.
And they were manifest in the beginning of Pentecost and in
this case, and it was so important that they would
experience salvation the same way the Jews did as Gentiles.
So the Jewish people wouldn't be able to say, well, this isn't
legitimate, they didn't have this experience or whatever.
And so I remembered the the word of the Lord, how he said, John
indeed baptized with water, but you shall be baptized with the
Holy Spirit. If therefore God gave them the
same gift as he gave us when we believed on the Lord Jesus
Christ, who is I that I could withstand God.
So he he throws it back on them and just ask the question.
He's humble when he's sharing this with these people, these
leaders, and he's not pushy. He's just stating the facts.
When they heard these things, they became silent.
And that's a miracle in and of itself for these Jewish leaders
to not come back with some kind of altercation or defense that
this isn't legitimate. It says when they heard these
things, they became silent and they glorified God, saying then
God has also granted to the Gentiles repentance to life.
Isn't it wonderful that there is no discrimination from God our
Creator? That all men are created equal?
No one is better than anyone else.
No race is better than anyone else.
No country is better than anyone else.
We're all level at the foot of the cross, aren't we all have
sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.
There's none that doeth good. No, not one.
The Bible says that's the whole human race to God in his mercy
through the gospel chooses to save people and continually
saves people over and over and over again through the simple
preaching of the word. And what excites me whenever I
read this, I think about even today as a pastor, I'm here
endeavoring to want to do the best I can to to feed you guys
and give you what the scriptures are saying.
But I'm not stupid enough or foolish enough to think that God
cannot circumvent what it is I'm saying and speak to you
individually while you're sitting here and you're hearing
something from God that has to do with your life and where
you're at and what's happening with you that I didn't even say
or talk about today. Somehow God does meets you here
in your seat as you're hearing His word.
He talks to you about things that He wants you to know about,
things he wants you to consider or reflect upon.
And so Peter sort of like moving off the map here is the focus,
focus in the 1st 11 chapters of Acts.
Now the focus is going to shift more to the Paul.
We'll see Peter again in chapter 12 here.
But now Barnabas, he is now on the scene.
You remember Barnabas, he's the guy that gave the property to
the early church in the beginning.
He donated property and Anas, Anais and Sapphira was sort of
jealous of what he did and they wanted to be recognized like
Barnabas. So they they lied and they said
they were given whatever to God that they didn't give and ended
up dying and getting dragged out of the church.
The Lord just dealt with her. They're lying and quite sobering
experience in those early days. Barnabas was a, a man of great
comfort and he was an encourager.
And this is just the way he always was.
Matter of fact, whenever Paul, Saul got converted on the on the
road there to Damascus and, and everybody's afraid because Paul
was a persecutor of Saul was a persecutor of Christians before
he was called Saul. Barnabas was able to meet with
Saul and see that his conversion was legitimate, that what
happened to him was a miracle, and that he really got saved.
And then he was able to go up with Barnabas to Jerusalem later
to meet the religious leaders at the time, the Judaizers, and
tell them, hey, don't be afraid of Saul.
He's one of us now. He's our brother.
And so Saul also is aware of the fact that whenever Saul was
called into the ministry that the Lord told him he would take
the gospel to the Gentiles. The Jewish member of the
Sanhedrin, a Pharisee now born again, becomes an apostle
because he's an eyewitness of Christ on that road.
And he goes up after his meeting in Jerusalem and they sent him
to Tarsus for they figure, 8 to 12 years.
So he's up there by himself, not with anybody else, studying,
learning. He didn't go into the ministry
the next day after he got saved. He was used the next day after
he got saved. He did speak in the synagogues,
but there was a lot for him to learn and hear from the Lord.
Eventually he wrote most of the New Testament.
So Barnabas in his mind, they're sending him.
We'll continue to read here. Now verse 19.
Now those who were scattered after the persecution that arose
over Stephen, you remember Stephen was martyred few
chapters back. The first martyr, Christian
martyr in the, in the New Testament, these people then
were persecuted and they traveled as far as Phoenicia,
Cyprus and Antioch. So they're, they're spread out
and they're preaching the word to no one but the Jews only.
So initially these people that are in in Jerusalem are, are
being spread out because of the persecution, but their focus
again is just Jewish people. But some of them were men from
Cyprus and Cyrene who when they had come to Antioch spoke to the
Hellenists. You remember the Hellenists were
the Greek cultural Jewish people preaching the Lord Jesus and and
the hand of the Lord was with them and a great number believed
in and turned to the Lord. Now now recognize in this
section of Scripture here that these were people like you and
me. They weren't, I'm not an
apostle. You aren't either.
You know, we're, we're just like normal believers.
We all have different spiritual gifts, but we're just like
normal everyday people, right? These people were normal
everyday people that were pressed out because of the
persecution and they were out there telling other people about
what Jesus did for them and as a result of their communication in
their marketplace and their neighborhoods where they live,
that kind of stuff, A great number of people believed and
turned to the Lord. None of them said, well, we got
to wait till the apostles come up or wait till Peter comes up
or Barnabas or Saul or James or whatever.
No, like it was so infectious the the work of God's Spirit and
the lives of people like you and me, which it should be that way
still, right? That's why we're studying Acts
to get revived, to learn more about how we can be used by the
Lord in these kind of situations, right?
That they had an impact and all these people believed and turned
to the Lord. Then news of these things came
to the ears of the church in Jerusalem.
So they're hearing what's going on.
The Lord is bringing a harvest. People are getting saved.
So they think about who they sent out already that God has
used. Now Barnabas is going to go as
far as Antioch. They're sending Barnabas up
there as a leader. And when he came and had seen
the grace of God, the grace of God, right?
When you see the grace of God, it attracts you.
I want the grace of God to be poured on in here, that there's
not enough room for people to come, not because of us, but
because of the grace of God. I'll tell you an interesting
story. I was on a Zoom call this week
and I was with a man who is a devout Roman Catholic.
Him and his wife, they happened to live in a garden apartment up
in North Jersey, right by the Calvary Chapel, the large
Calvary Chapel up in North Jersey.
Pastor Lloyd Pulley, who's on our radio pastor's at church,
and they would watch every Sunday these cars come and there
was an overflow so people would park in the garden apartment
parking lot. And he said to his wife, this
guy Nix's name, he says, honey, what's what's going on here?
Is that like a cult up there or what?
These people, they get out of their car and they have an aura
about them. He, the Holy Spirit, was helping
them to see the glory of God on the faces of these families.
And it was attracting him, the grace of God on these people
like us just getting out of their car, walking into church.
He said, you know, we had to go over there sometime.
She says, yeah, why not? Why don't we go over there?
So they went over and the first Sunday there for the first time
in their lives, he told me this after the business Zoom call.
He said, I want to talk to you about something off the record.
I see you're involved. Involved with Calvary Chapel.
Yeah. And I said, yeah.
And so then he begins to open up.
I want to tell you what happened.
He said he went in. And for the first time in their
lives, they heard the simple gospel.
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.
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. Visit calvarychapelonline.com
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of Living Waters of Grace.