This is Living Waters of Grace, the teaching ministry of Clark
Waffer, 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're no longer slaves to sin, for when we died with Christ, we
were set free from the power of sin.
It also identifies us with being part of the body of Christ.
In the New Testament church, when people were baptized after
they believed, they were already a member of the church.
You know, our way in Calvary chapels when people come.
How? How can I become a member of the
church? Where are you born again?
Yes. So you've been baptized?
Yes. Well, you're already a member.
There's nothing to sign, there's nothing to agree upon.
It's just believing in Jesus and following Him.
Believing in Jesus and following Him doesn't stop at salvation.
Your life should look different. There should be evidence of
Christ working in your life today.
Pastor Clark is going to encourage you to be bold in the
faith you claim and to share Jesus with others around you.
Every day there are people around you who need salvation.
They need the same hope for eternity that you have.
You may be the only person in their life who would share Jesus
with them. You could be the one who leads
them to Christ. Now here's Pastor Clark in the
book of Acts Chapter 8 with today's edition of Living Waters
of Grace. This guy's already prepared to
hear about Jesus, and I just get a chance to tell him about him
and explain things to him. How exciting this is for Philip
and how exciting it is for you and me.
When you have a chance to tell someone about what the Lord has
done for you and how much more exciting it is whenever they
start responding and their eyes start lighting up and they're
getting questions and they want to know and maybe they get to
the point, Well, how can I know this Jesus?
There's nothing more exhilarating in life to have the
opportunity to see God bring someone into salvation because
you were faithful to tell them about Jesus.
Amen. My wife is talking about this
over and over. We were praying the other night.
We had a profound discussion about life and aging and kids
and grandkids and family and older moms and just everybody
that's in our life and how we want to be used by the Lord
together as a couple and not be thinking about ourselves or our
opinions or our feelings. But how can we more be more
giving to others and less focused on this ourselves?
And she told me, and I mentioned this briefly, but I want to
bring it up again. She happened to be in a
neighborhood where her mom lives in a older development.
And she had a chance to visit a neighbor about some unrelated
matter. And she went in and the woman
was crying and her daughter was there.
And Cindy said, what's wrong? She's why I got to break up my
home. My husband's died.
I got to leave this place. I can't handle it myself.
They're going to put me in a personal care home now and just
seems like my life is this ending and I got all this stuff.
I don't know what to do with it. And and she was just overwhelmed
and distraught, this woman and Cindy began to tell her about
the Lord and she finally got to the point of asking the lady if
she could pray for her. And she says, oh, I would, I
would love that. And so Cindy got to pray for her
and got to impact this woman for Christ.
And she said, Clark, that's all I want to have a chance to do in
life, to have those kind of opportunities, those kind of
divine appointments, because she said there's nothing that makes
you feel any better than that kind of opportunity and
experience, right? And you guys know you've been
there, you've done it. And and so this is the
opportunity that we're learning about today in the book of the
act. This is Philip's encounter and
God personalized it. So you and I can sort of think
as we study this together, how can I be like Philip and be open
to the Holy Spirit and be ready to tell someone that they need
Jesus? And so Philip runs over and he
is going to begin to speak to him.
In verse 31, this man says, I can't understand any of this
unless someone guides me. And he asked Philip to come up
and sit with him. The place in the Scriptures
which he read was this. He was led as a sheep to the
slaughter. This is from Isaiah chapter 53
verses 7 and 8. Doesn't matter where you go in
the Bible, you can always take wherever it is in the Bible and
lead people to the truth of who Jesus is.
And as a slam before its shears is silent, so he opened not his
mouth, and his humiliation, His justice was taken away.
And who would declare his generation for his life is taken
from the earth? Now, you and I being believers
right away, we know, hey, that's Jesus, that's prophetical,
that's been fulfilled in the death, the bearer resurrection
of Jesus Christ. But the eunuch is hearing and
reading this for the first time. So the eunuch answers Philip and
says, I ask of you, of whom does this prophet say this?
Of himself or of some other man? And that's sort of the view of
the Jewish people when they read Isaiah 53.
If you ask a Jewish person who do you think that's about,
they'll say, well, that's a prophet or that's about the
Messiah. Or they might just be honest and
say we have no idea when we read that, what that's talking about.
South Philip opens his mouth and beginning at this Scripture,
preaches Jesus to him. So not only did he cover this
section of Scripture in Isaiah of this being fulfilled when
Jesus came to earth, but he would go into the teachings of
the Gospels and the experience that they've had already in the
book of the Acts with the preaching of the Gospel and how
thousands of people are becoming believers because they're
hearing about Jesus saves for the first time.
Jesus saves from sin. Jesus forgives sin.
Jesus cleanses us from sin. And so when Philip is preaching
to Jesus, to him, and they're going down the road, it says now
as they went down the road, they came to some water, interesting
water. And the eunuch said, see, here
is water. What hinders me from being
baptized back in those days, they had public baptism.
It wasn't done in the backyard of someone's home or in the YMCA
or in some church facility. They love going out into the
community, into streams and lakes and rivers and get a big
crowd of people around and have people publicly baptized.
Because when that happened, the culture all of a sudden said,
something's going on here with these Christians.
Every time I turn around, they're, they're, they're being
dunked underwater and they're, they're following Jesus.
What's going on here? And it convicts them.
And maybe they're thinking I'm missing out on something or I
should be baptized or I should follow Jesus.
I mean, all kind of thoughts happen when people see other
people baptized, as this man recognized right away the
significance of water, and water represents purification and
cleansing. He would have been taught that
in the school of Judaism. But that water can't cleanse us
from our sin. It's a purification, right?
Temporal. But it can't wash away sin, only
the blood of Jesus Christ. What can wash away my sin?
Nothing but the blood of Jesus, right?
We sang about that this morning, the blood of Jesus.
That's without the shedding of blood.
There is no remission of sin. If we walk in the light as
Christians, as He is in the light, we have fellowship one
with another. We have this communion, we have
this oneness, we have this unity, and the blood of Jesus
Christ, God's Son, cleanses us from all sin.
Amen. If we confess our sin, he is
faithful and just to forgive us our sin and to cleanse us from
all unrighteousness. It takes the blood of Jesus to
do that, the only sacrifice that could take away our sin.
And so Philip says to him, if you believe with all your heart,
you may. Now when you think about when
you first became a believer and the Lord brought you to the
knowledge of your need of salvation, and you began to
think about, you know, this, this power of the of the cross
and what it can do for you. You realize that first of all,
when you believe, you were maybe in front of someone that
understood you were believing, or maybe you were by yourself
when you believed like I was, but you knew that now you
believed. You once didn't believe and now
you believe a young man that used to come to this church.
I'll never forget the story. Wonderful young man and friends
of some good family here. And he had come from a Catholic
background and he never really heard, he said, the Gospel.
He just felt that he was hearing about religion every Sunday.
And so I got to know him after a while.
And I said, well, by the way, you know, how did you come here?
And he told me and and then I said, were you a Christian?
And he said, yeah. I said, well, how did that
happen? He said one Sunday, I'm just
sitting here and all of a sudden I believed.
Isn't that awesome? There was no altar call that he
had to come down the hall to, to like, you know, make some kind
of public confession. He just sat in his seat very
humbly. And the Lord saved him.
It's for by grace we've been saved through faith.
And this is not of ourselves. It's a gift of God, isn't it?
Not of works. And no man can boast.
So this question that was asked by Philip, Philip said to this
guy who wanted to be baptized, if you believe with all your
heart, you may. Now Philip didn't lead him in
any sinner's prayer here. Be be careful with this.
He didn't ask Philip to do anything, did he?
There was no methodology here. And the Scriptures tell us in
Romans chapter 10 that the word is near you and in your mouth
and in your heart. That's you're hearing it, you're
reading it, you're receiving it. That is the Word of Faith which
we preach, that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus,
this is what the man's doing. 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.
That's the simplicity of the gospel.
You believe in your heart that Jesus is a Christ, the Son of
the living God. God Forgives your sin.
You know you're a Sinner. You're forgiven you.
You're asking him to have mercy on you, whatever it is that you
might have done or have done or continually do.
And this man responds. Phillip says if you believe with
all your heart, you may, you may want to underline this in your
Bible. This is a direct, a clear
declaration of believing faith. He answered and said, I believe
that Jesus Christ is the Son of God.
Amen. I believe that Jesus Christ is
the Son of God. That's why the Lord said in John
316 so simply, what is a gospel? For God so loved this world that
he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him
should not perish, but have everlasting life.
That's the gospel. I don't know why in the world
people complicate the gospel. I know people in churches that
wanted to believe, but they said I was afraid of going up front
because I didn't want to be embarrassed and I wanted to keep
it private. Well, it didn't.
It's not about going up front, is it?
It's about believing. So we as pastors or churches
have tripped up so many people into thinking they must do
something in order to be saved, and the only thing they do is
believe on the Lord Jesus Christ.
And thou shalt be saved, if you confess with your mouth the Lord
Jesus, and believe in your heart that God hath raised him from
the dead, thou shall be saved. Now someone has questions in a
church they want to come up after Hey I don't understand
this thing to be saved. Can someone explain to me what
do I have to do? You know, all these things that
go through people's minds. The devil's trying to confuse
people with the simple gospel. Take them aside, sit them down
and have a conversation with them.
You might not be able to clearly get it across in 5 minutes after
church, right? Charles Spurgeon in his church,
he had a room where people met for intercession when he
preached. And at the end of the service,
he would meet people down in the office that wanted to receive
Christ and he'd ask them, well, why are you here?
And if they said they don't know, he said, well, you might
as well leave because if you don't know, there's nothing I
can do to help you. But if they said I'm here to get
saved, then he would patiently explain to them what the gospel
is and what it does and how God can save them.
It wasn't a, you know, a drawn out thing that either we're
being convicted and the Lord has given them faith to believe.
And if he wasn't doing that, there was nothing that Charles
or anybody else could do to make someone be a believer.
So soon as Philip heard that, he didn't ask any more questions,
did he? Are you sure?
Did you repent of every sin that you've ever done?
Did you tell me all the things you've done?
None of that stuff? He commanded Chariot the
standstill in verse 38. And both Philip and the eunuch
went down into the water, and he baptized him.
Now read between the lines. I don't know what kind of
conversation they have, but he already made the profession of
faith and admitted that he believed that Jesus Christ is
the Son of God. That's enough to baptize someone
every time I baptize someone or Pastor Lewis or you baptize
someone as a Christian. Baptism isn't just something
that pastors do, it's something that believers are to be doing.
You can baptize your grandkids in the ocean.
You can baptize them in a swimming pool.
You can baptize them at Lynn Run, whatever you want to do.
OK. But the bottom line is when you
baptize someone, you want to ask them, do you believe that Jesus
is a Christ? And they say, yes, I believe
that Jesus is a Christ, the Son of God.
Then based upon your profession of faith, I baptize you in the
name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, just
like Jesus told us to do in a Great Commission.
Go into all the world and preach the gospel to every living
creature, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the
Son and of the Holy Spirit. And you take them in.
You don't come down. Now, if they're a real bad
Sinner, and I've mentioned this before, you keep them down at
least 5 minutes, hold them down until they're almost ready to
gasp and die. And then you say, hey, you know,
the Lord gives you a new life, resurrection life.
You just simply baptize them, put them in and bring them out.
And boy, the joy that people experience, it's, it's a
commandment of God. Baptism isn't saving you, but
it's blessing you because you're being obedient to what Jesus
said. I remember when I first got
saved in the pastor just Baptist Church Baptist like baptized.
Their success is based on how many people they baptize, right,
not how many people they disciple.
No, I'm just kidding you. But so you know, these guys
hassle on me. Hey, you've been baptized.
I'm not getting baptized. Well, why not?
That's works. I've been saved by grace and
it's the truth. But I didn't understand this
whole idea of like, well, Jesus was baptized and he tells us to
baptize others. So what was the hang up there?
Just my pride. And finally, we're applying to
go to a Bible college. And one of the things in the
application was, have you been publicly immersed and baptized?
I looked at sin. Yeah.
I said we got to get baptized. So we got baptized in the
church. And boy, like you said, it was a
blessing. I mean, I, I didn't understand
the significance of it until I humbled myself and yielded
myself to the Lord and was baptized.
And the rest is the rest is history.
There's one baptism and that is being baptized.
Immerse in the name of the Lord Jesus, in the name of the
Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. You know, some people get
baptized when they're kids. They're they put a rose on your
head, a baby and a bapt. That's not baptism.
Infant baptism is no choice. I'm not saying, you know, it
isn't trying to honor the Lord or anything like that, but you
have to be baptized as a believer.
And any way you can be a believer is if you understand
the gospel and if you understand the gospel and you've received
the gospel, then you're to be baptized as a follower of Jesus
Christ. That's the New Testament model.
And so the chariot stand still, both Philip and the eunuch went
down into the water. They didn't stand by the water
and he didn't get a cup and pour it on top of them.
They went into the water and he baptized him.
Total immersion. Now, when they came up out of
the water, that means they had to be in the water to come up
out of the water, right? The spirit of Lord cut Philip
away so that the eunuch saw him no more and he went on his way
rejoicing. Isn't that wild?
So this guy's translated to this place called Azotis.
It's about 30 miles away. Just like, you know, like Star
Trek, man. He's going like from point A to
point B when you like to be able to be translated.
Lord, I want to go on vacation next week.
I don't feel like driving to New Jersey for seven hours.
Can you get me there in like 2 minutes?
That would be awesome. When it that's going to happen.
We're in heaven. We're going to be able to go
over the universe, but we're going to have that capability.
But anyway, whenever Philip wasn't there anymore, this
eunuch wasn't like all caught up.
Oh, where did where did Philip go or whatever.
He's just so excited about what happened to him.
He didn't see him anymore and he went on his way rejoicing and
Philip was found at his Otis and passing through.
He preached in all the cities till he came to Caesarea.
And so baptism. Why should I get baptized?
OK. From the earliest days of the
New Testament church, the way people showed that they had a
salvation born again experience was that they were publicly
baptized in the water. That's the way God set it up.
This is the way of a testimony. This is what Jesus wants us to
do, and this is the first step of faith observed by new
believers immediately following salvation.
I mean, back in those days, they didn't wait for your schedule.
You got saved, you were baptized right then.
If we had a baptismal font here, we would do that right away.
But it's just the nature of how our church is set up.
We don't have that available. Have to go to the swimming pool,
either the why in the winter or my house in the summer.
The act of baptism by immersion in water outwardly expresses the
inward experience of a change that happened in your life
because of Jesus Christ. It demonstrates when you're
going into the water, the old way of life is dying in the in
the tomb, like Jesus represents dying for our sins into the
tomb. And the third day he rose again
from the dead. And when you come up out of the
water, it's the magnificent work of Jesus.
He died for your sins and now you're rising out, showing that
you've been justified. It tells us in Colossians
chapter 2, verse 12. For you were buried with Christ
when you were baptized, and with him you were raised to new life
because you trusted the mighty power of God who raised Christ
from the dead. Baptism is ordained by the Lord.
It's part of the Great Commission.
As I've already said. We're told to go and make
disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of
the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
That's wonderful. And we're told then to teach the
people after they become believers, to obey everything
that the Lord's commanded us. That's the purpose of going
through the Bible and Sunday and all these different Bible
studies that we have and different pastors online that
are teaching the Word. It's the purpose to disciple and
get you strong in your faith so you're stable and you're able to
grow in the ways of the Lord. Baptism is again, being obedient
to Jesus. We want to please him.
We're being baptized to please the war, the Lord.
The word Christian means Christ's follower, and so as
we're being baptized, we're following Christ.
It unites us with Christ by identifying us with his death,
burial, and resurrection. And so the Word tells us that we
were therefore buried with Him through baptism.
Paul talks about this in Romans Into death in order that just as
Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father,
we too may live in a new life. Romans 6, three and four.
Likewise, baptism represents our death of the old life of sin and
our new birth into resurrection of life.
The freedom that we have now from bondage to sin, since we've
been united with Him and His death, were also raised to life
as He was. We know our old sinful selves
were crucified with Christ so that sin might lose its power in
our lives. We're no longer slaves to sin,
for when we died with Christ, we were set free from the power of
sin. It also identifies us with being
part of the body of Christ In the New Testament church, when
people were baptized after they believed they were already a
member of the church. You know our way in Calvary
chapels and people come on, how? How can I become a member of the
church? Where are you born again?
Yes, you've been baptized. Yes.
Well, you're already a member. There's nothing to sign.
There's nothing to agree upon. It's just believing in Jesus and
following him. And you've been baptized if you
haven't been baptized and we get you baptized.
So for you are all children of God through faith in Christ
Jesus, all who have been united, united with Christ and baptism
have put on Christ like putting on new clothes.
And so when we think about this, this idea of baptism, it's, it's
a joy, it's a privilege to be baptized.
And it's an opportunity to to really honor the Lord and what
it is that he wants us to do in the days ahead.
I believe like baby steps for the Lord to work on our lives,
that if I want to grow and get closer to the Lord, there's
there's steps in the Christian life that I'm required to begin
to walk in so that my life begins to become more Christ
like and less like myself. And baptism is the immediate
first step after you've been born again to be baptized.
Let's pray, Father, we're just so thankful, Lord, for your joy
in our church, in our lives. Because of you.
Lord, we're thankful so much for the Word of God that we can hear
it and believe it and apply it and live it.
And Lord, we pray in the days ahead that Lord, many would come
to know you because of your word being passed out, letting people
know the truth of the word. There's a famine for the Word of
God in the world right now. There's a lack of places where
people can even find the Word of God anymore.
Lord, I pray that you would help us, Lord, to be faithful to do
this. Use the resources, Lord, that we
give to help us buy more and more Bibles.
Lord, thank you for those who give to this ministry and help
provide, Lord, and we pray you bless them for it.
Lord, we pray, God, as we are provided for by you, that we
equip the Saints for the work in the ministry, that we, Lord, are
interested in people coming to know Jesus.
Lord, every we know that's your heart continually.
Lord, there's not enough that we could get back to you ever that
would would pay you for what you've done for us.
But we're thankful, Lord, You don't ask for payment.
You made the payment for us. You died in our place.
Shed your blood for us that we might be set free and forgiven.
We praise you for that, Lord. We're so glad you joined us
today on this edition of Living Waters of Grace.
Pastor Clark is teaching through the book of Acts, which is the
only book that chronicles the history of the early church
immediately after Jesus's ascension.
It gives us a front row seat to how the Gospel began to move
outward, starting in Jerusalem and reaching into the heart of
the Roman Empire. In just three decades, a small
group of frightened ordinary believers became a bold, spirit
empowered movement that transformed the known world.
Acts is not just a history lesson.
It's a reminder of what God can do when His people are
surrendered, obedient, and filled with the Holy Spirit.
Their perseverance still inspires us today.
May we follow their example and live faithfully for Christ in
our own time. We hope today's message
encouraged you. Living Waters of Grace is a
ministry of Calvary Chapel, Westmoreland.
If you're in the Greensburg, PA area, we'd love to have you join
us in person. Our Sunday service begins at
10:30 AM at 400 E Pittsburgh St. Unit 6B.
Be sure to visit calvarychapelonline.com to
confirm times and learn more. If you are in the Greensburg
area, you can listen to Grace FM on the new 91.7 frequency.
Please pray about supporting this outreach.
Gifts can be sent to Grace FMPO, Box 716, Greensburg, PA 15601.
Stay connected through Facebook, YouTube, or our Calvary Chapel
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prayer requests, and give online all at calvarychapelonline.com.
Thank you for tuning in and spending this time in God's
Word. Be sure to join us again for
Living Waters of Grace.