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.
Each time we see our thoughts and our hearts, they convict us
many times of some sin. And it's not to condemn us that
the Lord does that. It's that we might take the
medicine of repentance seriously and be restored to communion and
fellowship with God. First, John 19 tells us that we
might be cleansed from all unrighteousness if we confess
our sins. James 48 says Cleanse your
hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts.
I don't know about you, but I'm a little old school.
I like to change the oil in my car myself.
It really isn't that difficult and it doesn't take that long.
One thing about it is how messy my hands are afterward.
For sure, I'm going to spend a good amount of time cleaning up
all the grease and grind before I do anything else.
In today's message with Pastor Clark, he urges you to examine
your heart and to confess any sin to God.
Are your hands stained by the grace and grime of the world?
Ask God and He'll cleanse you. Now.
Here's Pastor Clark in First Corinthians Chapter 11 with
today's edition of Living Waters of Grace.
So the purpose of the supper is a healing move of God's Spirit.
We just don't take it as a ritual, the cup and the bread
and OK, we move on to the next thing.
If we take an understanding what it is, Jesus said this is my
body which is broken for you. The apostle Paul said this is
the blood that was shed for you. If we take it examining
ourselves and not taking in an unworthy manner, then we're not
going to be weak spiritually. We're not going to be sick
spiritually. We're going to have the strength
of God in US. Repentance transforms us from
living in sin to living in purity and holiness.
John Morris taught us an immense study this morning the
importance of living in a holy way, being holy as he is holy.
Repentance changes us from having a propensity to be
unholy, to be pure and to be holy.
The Bible says without holiness, no man shall see the Lord.
And so I'm going to say why pray to prayer?
I asked Jesus that came into my heart and be my savior.
Well, it it doesn't work that way if we aren't following
Christ, not only his Savior, but his Lord will be terribly
disappointed at the judgment when he says to me, depart from
you cursed that I never knew you and we'll say, well, why I
prayed a prayer. I asked you to come into my
heart and save me. But Jesus said, why do you call
me Lord Lord and do not do the things that I say?
He says, if you love me, you will keep my word.
Repentance is unending until we die.
Some people think, well, I just repent when I get saved.
Well, that's the beginning of repentance.
I mean, once you come to know Christ and he's in your life,
you become very aware of your inadequacy spiritually.
You become very clearly aware of your weaknesses and you realize
your need of God's strength and His help.
And so you are sensitive if you've offended someone, if you
judge someone, or if you've been critical, if you've been
lustful, you've been bitter, you've been angry, you've been
greedy. You can't disallow that, that
cesspool sin to circulate in your heart without being very,
very disturbed and bothered. And you don't have rest and you
don't have peace until you repent and say, Lord, that was
wrong. Forgive me and cleanse me.
And if you have to, you go make the amends with the people that
you've hurt and offended. Each time we see our thoughts
and our hearts, they convict us many times of some sin.
And it's not to condemn us that the Lord does that.
It's that we might take the medicine of repentance seriously
and be restored to communion and fellowship with God.
First, John 19 tells us that we might be cleansed from all
unrighteousness if we confess our sins.
James 48 says Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify
your hearts. That's the purpose of
repentance. I'm so grateful for repentance.
I don't know what I would do without repentance.
I remember there was a time in my life I didn't think I needed
to repent. I don't know.
I was under some bad teaching and I thought, well, I got saved
and and you know, I'm on my way to heaven and this is good as it
gets in. And I never thought about my
offenses toward God. And I would live day in and day
out, week in and week out, month in and month out, year in and
year out in delusion, living in perpetual sin.
Think and I was OK and meanwhile having an unrest in my heart,
having a sense of impurity knowing something was wrong.
But I'm with my brothers and sisters and all of us are in the
same boat, trying to make each other feel good in our sin.
Trying to make each other feel OK.
That it's a weakness in man's nature to be drawn to
pornography. It's a weakness in everyone's
heart. Sin is a sickness and it isn't
OK for men to be in pornography. And just because two other
brothers tell you they struggle with it doesn't mean that that's
OK. Someone there has to be a
brother saying I used to struggle with pornography, but
by the grace of God I don't anymore.
And this is what the Lord did for me.
This is how He changed my heart and this is how He set me free.
Purity of heart. And we look at Psalm 122 two, it
says my help comes from the Lord who made heaven and earth.
The Lord is our helper. But we all are affected by this
law of sin. It exists within all of us.
If you're a Christian here today, you are not sinless.
You still battle with sin in your life.
And it's a law, it's a principle, and it affects
everyone of us. And apart from the blood of
Jesus Christ, everyone of us are doomed.
Amen. If it wasn't for the blood of
Christ, there would be no remission of sins.
And the Word of God is what our weapon is against the sin that's
still within our hearts. That's why the psalmist said thy
word. Have I hid in my heart that I
might not sin against Thee? We don't memorize Scripture to
impress people of our great knowledge of the Scripture.
If you memorize Scripture for no, no other reason, I pray This
is why you memorize it, so that you are protected from sin, then
that's a good enough reason to memorize it.
Without the word of God, the enemy will Vanquish and capture
you as a spiritual struggler. And some of you today, I'm sure,
are being vanquished by the enemy.
You're being beat down. You're struggling in your sin.
You don't have the ability to overcome it because you don't.
It's been so long since you've drawn near to God.
You've been running from God, and it's been so long since
you've drawn near to God, you've forgotten that if you draw near
to Him, he'll draw near to you. And without the word of God, the
enemy will mess you up. He'll strip you of the divine
weapons that God's given you. He'll drag your life into a
horrible pit of sin, of sorrow, of heartache, of bondage and
destruction. And as a pastor, that's what
breaks my heart because I see people that come and go here
that refuse to repent and they want to have life their own way,
and they don't realize that. They think they can get away
with it, but eventually their life will tragically be
destroyed by sorrow and heartache.
The heartache that they'll receive themselves and the
heartache that they're going to cause other people because of
their bondage to sin and the destruction it has occurred in
their life. I think sometimes Cindy and I,
we pray for loved ones and people we care about, brothers
and sisters and and I and I'm learning to be patient and gone
upon God. It might not be today that
someone gets busted. It might not be next week, next
month, next year. But they'll come a time when
someone's going to call you up and say, I need help.
I got a bad medical report, my wife left me, my kids on drugs.
I lost my job. I'm in the pits of despair and
despondency. I don't know which way to turn.
There'll come a time of crushing and breaking by the mercy of God
that that person will then begin to say I'm waking up.
There's got to be more to life. I want to get my house in order
because the consequences of my life to this point, if I died
today, I'm not real sure I would be with the Lord because of the
way I've lived my life. All the distressing events and
consequences that are occurring in this world today, in this
human life are the result of one purpose, one reason, and that's
sin. When tragedy happens and
adversity happens in people's lives, what's the first thing
they do? They complain.
God, why they blasphemy. Just like the people in
Revelation. The sun's too hot, the sores are
too painful. Why are you doing this?
I hate you. Why don't you just get out of my
life? Why don't you leave me alone?
Why don't you leave all of us alone, not understanding that
the God of creation created us to be in communion, to have a
life of peace and love and grace and joy with the Lord?
Yet in the midst of these adversities of life, God will
work everything out for good for those who love God and are
called according to His purpose. I don't care what adversity you
have today, what trial, what tribulation, what you're facing,
God promises everything will work for good to those who love
Him and are called according to His purpose in Romans 828.
I think today as I look at this message and I say to myself,
does God find repentance in US today as he looks over this
congregation? Does he find repentance here
today? Have you said or do you say or
even as you're listening to this message, are you saying I have
sinned against heaven and against you, Lord?
Do you hate the sin that's working to destroy your own
life? Are you getting to the point
that you hate sin? Because when you start hating
sin, you'll start to flee sin. When you start to hate sin as
God hates it, you'll begin to draw near to Him and draw away
from the sin. Are you willing to turn deeper
into the ways of God, forsaking the path that you might be on
now? There has to come a time in all
of our lives that we say enough's enough.
I've wasted too many days, too many hours, too much money, too
much heartache because I wanted it my way.
And now I want to turn to the Lord and forsake the foolish
path I'm on and go deeper in His ways.
I've been a pastor now for 14 years, and it's been 14 years
that I've decided by the grace of God, to walk in a path that
is deeper. But there was a time in my life
that I was asleep. I was not awake.
I thought it was OK. The nominal Christian life is,
hey, show up for church once in awhile, put a few bucks on your
offering plate, say a few prayers, and then live your life
the way you want. That's not what Christ came to
give us. He came to give us a vital,
intimate, deep relationship with the living God, so that once you
get a taste of that relationship, everything else is
secondary, that you begin to lay your head down the pillow at
night and you say, Lord, I want life, your life more than my
life. I want you, Lord, more than life
itself. That's what His desire is for
all of us. And he wants to reveal himself
to us that we might follow Him that way.
Isaiah 38 One, the prophet says to Hezekiah, you're sick and
you're near death. A bad report.
The prophet says, set your house in order, for ye shall die and
not live. Hezekiah freaks out.
He gets that message and he prays and he repents and he
turns to God for mercy. And the Lord gave him another 15
years. I don't know how much time you
have, but it doesn't matter whether you're 5 here today, one
here today, 25456575. It doesn't matter.
Today is a day to get your house in order.
I don't know how much time the Lord has given you, how much
time you have left, But we need the medicine of repentance to
our last breath. I pray on my deathbed.
I'm crying out to the Lord for mercy.
Lord have mercy. Lord have mercy.
Not laying there arrogantly
thinking my life's OK, There's nothing to examine.
There's nothing to humble myself before a holy God and thinking
I'm just going to glibly walk into that throne room and say,
give me bones, God. I'm going to be on my face
before the holy God and ask him as I'm on my face for his mercy.
His mercy will be extended to those who cry out for his mercy,
creating me, as the psalmist said, Lord, a clean heart, which
after you is created in righteousness and true holiness.
What is best for you and me as we struggle against the war of
sin in our lives every day. Have we gotten too tired and
lazy because of our pride or forgetful or the things of the
world of crowded? What's really important and
these all become obstacles to humility.
Time flies really fast. The years roll by and they draw
us closer and closer and closer to eternity.
And we all see this. We're all aware of it.
You look in the mirror. I don't know.
You have to be blind to look in the mirror and know you look a
lot different than you did five years ago or 10 years ago.
But we have this mental numbness.
And what heals us from this pride and numbness is
repentance. And the question to me this day
is, how white and clean is your soul and mine?
How white and clean is our souls?
Every minute I'm either thinking of myself or I'm thinking of
Christ. Every minute I'm either thinking
of his will or my will. And that's why Paul said awake
to righteousness and sin. Not he said that to the church
in Corinth, Awake to righteousness.
Why? Because the people were asleep
in in fornication in immorality and pride, wanting to act like
they were more spiritual than someone else.
They had this attitude in the Church of everybody trying to be
something they weren't. And Jesus says if you love me,
you'll keep my commandments. I that rings on my heart every
day when I have a choice to make my own move and to do my own
thing. I hear the Lord say, hey, Clark,
if you love me, you'll keep my word.
Oh, I love you, Lord. Well, if you love me, you're
going to do what I'm telling you to do.
Oh, I love you, Lord. Well, why are you heading that
way? Why are you thinking that?
Why do you want to do that? And God in his grace, draws me
back. Yes, Lord, I want to prove that
I love you by how I live my life.
Hebrews 413 says God knows our hearts.
We can fool each other. We can act like we got it all
together. But God knows our heart.
He knows if it's real or counterfeit faith, it says in
Hebrews 413 And there is no creature hidden from him, from
his sight, but all things are naked and open to the eyes of
him to whom we must give an account.
That means every deed in your life, guys and gals, you have to
give an account of every word, every thought.
It says we will give an account to the Lord.
Someone made this quote. They said sin is like a hook.
It's camouflaged with suitable pleasure.
It comes craftily as someone something sweet and charming to
the tongue in order to attack the soul.
However, he who has been lured by momentary pleasures in its
comforts will find it more bitter than poison and more
destructive than a pestilent disease in their soul.
The Bible says you can enjoy the pleasures of sin for a season
and then it catches up with you the consequences.
I've had the horror in my life to sense the pestilence of the
disease in my soul because of my own sin.
And I thank God for His mercy and His forgiveness, that He is
merciful to forgive us of our sin as we come to Him and
cleanse us from our own righteousness.
Walk on the path of repentance and you'll have a peaceful mind.
Don't let the past trouble you. Many times we are still guilt
ridden from our past. That's the liar.
That's a devil. Jesus, whenever his mercy.
And this is something hard for us to understand.
The apostle Paul says forget the things which are behind and
reach forward to the things which are ahead.
And listen to this. As soon as you admit to God that
you've sinned and you turn to God away from your sin, God
Forgives us immediately and overlooks our sins.
Aren't you glad? Doesn't that give you relief?
God chooses to overlook our sins and forgive us.
With repentance everything is corrected.
There is nothing that overcomes the compassion of God.
Another quote. He is merciful to the last and
provides for the first. To this one He gives, and to
that one he shows. Kindness, the love of God,
covers and corrects everything, and we all realize today no one
is sinless except for who God. Luke 7 tells us about the harlot
who repented. She washed the feet of the Lord
Jesus, His Immaculate feet. She washed his feet and shed her
tears that were more precious than myrrh, and they attracted
God's mercy and forgiveness. Then she heard from the Lord.
Your sins are forgiven. Go in peace.
Why would we not want to repent today?
Cry out to Jesus, fall before his feet.
I don't care whether you do it in the front of the church at
the end of the service, You do it in your car on the way home.
You do it at your home by your bedside.
This gets somewhere and cry out to God and say to the Lord, if
there's something in your life that you know you got to stop
doing, you got to get away from, you got to turn from say I've
sinned. My Jesus, receive my heartfelt
repentance, O Lord and Master of my life.
And rest assured, if you pray and you ask God for that
forgiveness and mercy, Christ will forgive you and pour out
His love and mercy upon your life.
You might get tired of Maine talking about this subject, but
for me this is the theme of the body of Christ.
Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.
John the Baptist brought that message.
Jesus proclaimed that message, and the message he gave to the
apostles and all those who have followed that vein of gold from
the throne of God since the beginning of time.
Is it to a lost and weary world? Repent, for the Kingdom of God
is at hand. Don't be deaf today.
This is a difference between sincere repentance and
counterfeit repentance. Sincere repentance is repentance
that displays regret for sins committed.
I mourn. I don't look at my past sins and
beat myself up anymore, but I mourn over the fact that I did
them. The psalmist said My sin is ever
before me and against you only. Have I sinned and done this evil
on your sight. It bothers me that at one time
in my life and still at times I will think things and say things
and do things that hurt my Lord and that bothers me.
You know, if you love someone like your wife or your kids and
you, you say something to them, it's wrong or a brother and
sister in Christ and you walk away.
You you can't live with that. You got to go back to them and
say, I'm really sorry that I said that.
Please forgive me that I did that.
And there's nothing more wonderful than to have someone
hug you and say, Hey, man, I forgive you.
I love you. Mourning burning tears that
break the strongholds of sin. Sometimes it's important for us
to cry and to weep before the Lord.
And sometimes it's been a long time since maybe we've shed a
tear over sin because our hearts have become so hard.
But if we could just see him in living color on that cross with
his arms stretched out, saying, Father, forgive them for they
know not what they do, there wouldn't be one of us standing
there with a hard heart, all right?
Our eyes would be filled with tears because of His mercy.
And it's His power and his grace.
It causes us to go and sin. No more repentance leaves
nothing unhealed. If you're here today and you
have wounds and sores and heartache and heartbreak because
of sin, if you repent today, God will heal that brokenness.
He'll, He'll heal this, the sores.
And without repentance, there's no one that's going to be saved.
No one the victory is given. The overcoming life is poured
out through gifts of repentance. And I think of the simplicity of
the Christian life where Jesus says let us live in simplicity,
an innocence of heart. Like little children.
I love seeing my grandkids. I love hanging out with them, my
Isabella, my me and my Liliana, my Logan.
I play with them and, and there's no, I don't know.
It's a whole different thing than hanging out with adults.
They're so innocent. I took me out.
Last night was her birthday. We were celebrating her birthday
and took her outside and I said, let's go look for the moon.
You know, we're looking for the moon.
And we saw a brightness somewhere we couldn't find the
moon walking around the street, around this car and this house
and just, you know, couldn't find it.
And so she said, where's moon, Papa?
I said, moon's hiding. She said moon hiding.
Moon hiding. This is simple.
Jesus isn't hiding today. He's here in our midst speaking
through the weakness of a man to get your attention that you
might live with simplicity. For Jesus said unless you become
as little children, you will by no means enter the Kingdom of
God. When a little child's heart,
they immediately find their parent and say, hold me, help
me. We ask them what's wrong.
We comfort them. The Lord is here today to
comfort you. This has been Living Waters of
Grace with Pastor Clark. We're going through the
challenging and also intriguing Book of Revelation.
Whether you're a fan of reading ahead in books of fiction,
there's such a benefit to reading ahead in the Bible to
read about how it all ends. But in an interesting turn of
events, the Book of Revelation is not really the end, but
rather the beginning. It's the end of life as we know
it here on earth, but there's so much to look forward to.
But what comes after all? The judgement of the earth and
those who reject God? There's a lot to work through,
and it can be heartbreaking to read through the intense
judgements and wrath that will come on those who hate God with
all their might. The thing is, God has given
chance upon chance to these people and they don't want it.
So the outcome is that there are judgments and consequences for
those who've rejected the good news and the gift of salvation
that's offered through Jesus's death and resurrection.
Are you one who has heard about these things but doesn't really
want it because you want to live life on your terms?
Trust me, living for Jesus is so much better.
That doesn't mean it will be easy, but as you listen and read
through Revelation with us, you'll come to a stark
realization that you don't want to be on earth when the
apocalypse happens. So check out Calvary Chapel
online.com to learn how to come to a saving grace through faith
that will allow you to be with Jesus for eternity.
We'd also love to meet you in person at Calvary Chapel
Westmoreland. Come join us at 400 E Pittsburgh
St. Ste. 6B in Greensburg, PA 15601.
This has been living waters of Grace.