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.
So all the things that are wrong in the world today, we don't
like it. We want to see it corrected.
And that's a good thing. He's already overcome the world.
He's not looking at this institution that we call the
United States of America, which we all love and we're willing to
die for. His hope is not built on
America. The hope of God is built on one
foundation, and that's the death, the burial, resurrection
and soon coming of Jesus Christ. When we think of our allegiance
to the Kingdom of God, it can be difficult to remember that the
Kingdom of God takes priority over the nation we live in
currently. See, God isn't coming to make a
new Kingdom out of the nations of this current day and age.
No, God is going to make everything new again and that
means getting rid of all the man made institutions that we've
built up over centuries. Our hope must be placed in Jesus
or everything we've built up in this life will crumble to dust
and be swept away. Now here's Pastor Clark in Acts
Chapter 5 with today's edition of Living Waters of Grace.
Stephen was one of the seven. He was not an apostle, but he
was a man of God filled with the Holy Spirit.
So God doesn't differentiate in regard to the communication of
the Word. A man of God is a man of God.
You know, the title does not make the man the man of God.
It's not the pastor or the elder or the Deacon.
It's you and me as men were either given over to serve God
and to be used by God and to use our gifts that God's given us,
or we just sit around and don't do anything right in our church.
You know, we want to see more and more men teaching the word
of God because if they're learning to teach the word of
God, they're going to help the church grow, but they're also
going to be used by the Lord in their own homes and their family
and their own sphere of influence as as well as the
church. And Wednesday night we have
other guys beside pastors that are teaching the word and
they're this is competent and gifted and a blessing to us is,
is, is the pastors. We don't hold one person up
higher than the other. It's the word of God that's
doing the work right. The word of God communicated to
the people of God is what changes the the hearts of of the
people of God. So Stephen is a man of faith.
It says here in verse 8, Stephen full of faith and power did
great wonders and signs among the people.
And then you might say, well, I thought any of the apostles
could do that. Well, back in the early church
days, God's miraculous power was being poured out through men and
women and very different kind of circumstances.
It wasn't, excuse me, only an Apostolic kind of authority that
would have the ability to do these things.
I mean, Stevens picked to be and there was no deacons at this
time. Later on, the word developed
Deacon means servant. In the book of Timothy, it tells
about the qualifications of leaders in the church.
But they weren't so much at this particular point in time
positioned as deacons. They were just servants, right.
So Steven, he's doing these ministries and he's called to
help with the widows, but he, he didn't, well, I guess I'm just
like a down and out guy and I'm, I'm not good enough to do
anything else. So I'll help these widows and
I'll, you know, no, he was a man of God.
So he had a lot of spiritual gifts.
He was able to do a lot of different things.
He wasn't just doing one thing right.
He was able to be used by the Lord.
And then in verse 9, there arose some from what is called the
synagogue of the freeman sirenians, Alexandrians and
those from Silesia and Asia disputing with Stephen.
They began to argue with him because of his evangelistic zeal
and his preaching of of Christ. Cilicia is the region where the
apostle Paul was serving with the Sanhedrin at the time.
He was called Saul of Tarsus and we'll study later on in the book
of the Acts how he became born again.
But he was a persecutor of Christians.
And so it says that and when they were not able to resist the
wisdom and the spirit by which he spoke.
So these guys are hearing what the gospel's about the person of
Jesus, the history, the biblical point by point step and he goes
into great detail. It's probably one of the
greatest historical sermons in the New Testament as to what God
started with Abraham and moved all the way through Christ when
Christ came. We'll take our time as we study
this. But so they're arguing with him.
But what was amazing was they inside weren't able to resist
the wisdom and the spirit by which he spoke.
There was an anointing on this man, and they weren't able to
ignore it. They weren't able to dispute it.
They weren't really able to find concrete evidence to disagree
with what he was saying. They didn't like what he was
saying, but they weren't able to disagree with what he was
saying. They were convicted even at the
early stage of his his preaching here.
And it says then they secretly induce men to say we have heard
him speak blasphemous words against Moses and God.
So already these guys are beginning to spread division and
lies among the multitudes of people.
They're putting him down. They're disagreeing, they're
lying about things he said. Isn't that typical of anybody
that is influential in the culture?
If they're good people and they're trying to do the right
job, how many people slander the leader or the spokesperson or
the person? You know, it could be a
politician, it could be, you know, whatever, a pastor, you
guys or your family, you know, you're sharing your faith with
someone and, and they're, they're saying, well, you know,
I wouldn't listen to him because I saw him run a red light last
week. You know, he's not a real
Christian or just goofy stuff, right?
They've come up with all kind of reasons to invalidate you as
being a follower and a servant of God, right?
So they're beginning to stir all this up.
You know, we've heard him speak blasphemous words against Moses
and God. He never did that.
But he surely told them that Jesus was better than Moses,
which he is, right? They also talked about the
authority of Christ versus all those who went before him.
He was very clear on representing the Lord as as to
who he was and what he did. And it says in verse 12.
And they stirred up the people, they got them all uptight, got
them all anxious, aggravated the elders and the scribes, and they
came upon him, seized him and brought him to the council.
So none of this stuff's true. What they're saying about this
evangelist Stephen, he's being faithful to just give the word
out there simply the history of what Christ has done.
And they get this group of people that want to arrest them
now, seize them and bring them before the authorities, the same
authorities that Christ had to go through and go before, which
is interesting. They also set up false witnesses
who said this man does not cease to speak blasphemous words
against this holy place in the law.
False witnesses, that's common in the day as well.
How many times have you heard things that are being said about
someone that aren't? That isn't true.
This is happening in the political arena right now.
Thank the Lord there's evidence to the contrary and it's brought
out to clarify that it is a lie and it's not true, but it's the
enemy always wants to bring lies and slanderous things against
the truth. It's just the way it is in in
our world, and it's the way it's been since the beginning of
time. So they set up these false
witnesses. Now, when Stephen was speaking
about what God had put on his heart, he wasn't like saying
that the temple was insignificant, but he was trying
to help them understand. You've made this into an
idolatrous institution. You've begun to worship the
structure and the artwork and the beauty of the temple and not
the one who created it. And that can happen very easily
in, in, in churches. People saw, if you've been into
that church, it's magnificent. They have the most amazing
stained glass and they have, you know, how high ceilings in the,
in the chandeliers and, and people can go on and on and on.
And they like, they go into that and then they think, well, you
know, because all that stuff's there, then there must be God
must be there somehow. And then they, they, they come
into a place like this. And where's the stained glass
man? You know, is this really a
church or is this a cult or what is this place?
You know, and I'm not negating the beauty.
I like a, a beautiful church. I go into Saint Vincent once in
a while and pray when I'm driving down the road.
I just like going in there because the sun's coming in
through that stained glass window.
It's cool. I like that.
If we could afford it, I like to do it right.
But we're never, we're probably never going to be able to do
that. So if you want that, you got to
go up there, right? Nonetheless, it's not an opinion
of this is better and this is worse.
You know, the whole idea was it was their heart.
And because of their hearts being so focused on religion and
the duty of the law, they were religious Pharisees, and they
were trying to make everybody in a legalistic way, follow their
pattern of religion. And so Stephen's telling them
about the freedom that we have in Christ and that God is not
dwelling in temples made with hands.
Jesus made that clear. It's nice.
You know, when we're together as a church, I sense God's presence
here, not because of the building, but because you're
here. You represent him.
Your life is filled with God's Spirit and and that's what makes
the place alive when whenever you guys all leave here and you
walk in here, it's just a room. It's just a room, but you still
can sense of spirit because he's with you if you're the only one
in the room. For we have heard him say that
this Jesus of Nazareth will destroy this place and change
the customs which Moses delivered to us.
So they're really making a big deal about the building.
And whenever Jesus said this temple will be destroyed or be
raised up in three days, we all know because we went through the
Gospel studying, that he was referring to his body, right,
and his resurrection. But of course, the temple was
going to be destroyed in AD 70. And he warned them about what
was going to happen to their wonderful city and because of
their Pagan rituals and everything else that was going
on, that the Lord was going to allow that all to be eventually
destroyed. And the customs, you know, the
traditions of men make God's word of no effect.
If I or Lewis or any of us as leading the church began to make
a custom primary versus the worship of Jesus, we've lost it.
We've already gone down the wrong Rd. and all of us have
come out of different churches before we got saved.
Maybe we were in churches that preached the gospel, but every
church had a custom that I was involved in and they weren't
necessarily bad customs. But if the custom was made that
you had to do this custom in order to please God, then you
were guilt ridden. You felt like if I don't do
this, then I'm really not following the Lord.
Like, you know, we have an altar call once in a while, but I'm
not against altar calls. But I'm not really for them all
the time because they, they can become accustomed really quick.
I remember when I first started as a pastor, if everybody wasn't
at the altar before I was done preaching, I thought I failed,
right? So people would graciously come
up and there would be like two people sitting out there and
everybody else is at the altar. I mean, So what do we do?
Do we promise God this week that we're going to be better than we
were last week and we're going to do things differently?
Well, that's a nice idea to promise God, but usually your
promises are going to fail and you're going to find yourself
right back up front again under guilt again for the same thing.
You didn't get straightened out with the week before, right?
Doesn't make sense. Only the Holy Spirit can change
the heart. It's not the custom of the
altar. It's the work of God in your car
or at the home or in your backyard or playing with your
kid. God's everywhere.
In him we live, move and have our being.
So God is not positioned that man.
If if you're not at the altar today, you're, you know, you're
disobeying me and you're not following me or you're not, you
know, I mean, I don't know how many times as a young Christian,
I was on an altar and, and praying and, you know, wanting a
miracle and wanting a quick fix to protect me from as a young
man having lust of my heart, right?
God allowed less in a good way, because if men didn't have a
desire for a woman, there'd be no children.
So right, To have a desire to see someone who's attractive and
you're eventually going to get married to them, hopefully and
not sleep around with them. That's not what God wants.
But this desire that a man has for a woman, a woman has for a
man is a thing made by God. It's a good thing the marriage
bed isn't defiled, but as a young man I struggled a lot with
that. I don't know, am I the only guy
that had problems with that? Right.
And I battled that I battled. I still battle it.
Not to the degree I did when I was younger, but it's always
there, isn't it? And I wish that I could have
everything removed from my life in once one like switch and I'd
I'd be perfect. I have no more flaws.
I have no more sin. And the only one that can do
that is a Lord. When he died for us, he took
away all of our sin, didn't he? I can't negotiate with him and
promise him something that I'm bound to fail in.
I want to be more faithful. I want to be more dedicated, but
that's got to be the Lord doing that.
Because if I think I did it, then I'm going to come up here
and try to make you guys think you got to do it in your own
strength. And you can't without him, we
can't do anything. We have to come to that
realization without his help, we can do nothing.
And so he's telling them about their customs that are not doing
anything for anybody. They're, they're ridiculous.
And the customs in the Old Testament, when you read through
some of those customs that they had to go through to deal with
leprosy and all that kind of stuff, did you have problem
reading through the Bible in some of those areas?
You just sort of skip through because you said, well, this has
nothing to do with me. I don't know any lepers and I
haven't had leprosy. So I'm not really that
interested in how they dealt medically with leprosy.
But back in those days you need to know how to deal with leprosy
because there was a lot of lepers.
So they bring all these customs in, these rituals, these issues
of kosher and all these other things, and they make the gospel
and the word of God have no effect.
And so all who sat in the council looked steadfastly at
him and saw his face as a face of an Angel.
This is beautiful. Nothing was stirring this guy
up. He had the peace of God on him,
the anointing of God, the presence of God.
His face was shining like Moses face was shining when he came
down off the mountain, when he had met with God on Mount Sinai.
They're looking at him and they got to be saying, what's with
this guy? We're saying all these hateful,
all these untrue things about him, and he's not standing up
for his own rights or he's not trying to tell him they're wrong
and they're liars and I'm going to get legal counsel.
He was doing what he was doing because he loved God and he knew
what God had called him to do, and he was not bothered by
anybody's opinion or what it is they said or what it is they
thought. I want to be more like that when
my wife's mad at me and she's upset and she's probably right
about what she's upset about. I want to be able to have a
shiny face, not a mean face. What about you?
And trying to turn it around like I'm OK and she's not.
When you guys want to insult me or say something hurtful to me.
Thought that you would ever think of doing that right?
But if you did, or you might, I want to be like this snout and
loving you and not worrying about it instead of it.
Don't they realize how hard I work and how much I pray and how
much I care about them? And this isn't fair.
Lord, you know I didn't sign up for this.
Stuff that's ridiculous don't even have that discussion in
your mind about what you can't fix or do anything about.
People are going to form opinions about you whether you
like it or not. They're going to either say nice
things, they're going to say hurtful things.
And if we can get free from that, like Stephen was able to
be free from this, and this is a big time like assault on him,
it's going to cost him his life by what it is he's saying here,
that he had the presence of God, God's fullness in him.
Everything he's doing is according to the will of God.
Jesus told these guys long before he was crucified in the
world. You'll have tribulation, the
trials, difficulty, heartache, crisis.
Think you don't like things you don't think are fair in the
world, You'll have tribulation. But be of good cheer.
This guy's of good cheer here. Stephen has good cheer because
Jesus told us he's overcome the world.
So all the things that are wrong in the world today, we don't
like it. We want to see it corrected.
And that's a good thing. He's already overcome the world.
He's not looking at this institution that we call the
United States of America, which we all love and we're willing to
die for. His hope is not built on
America. The hope of God is built on one
foundation, and that's the death, the burial, resurrection,
and soon coming of Jesus Christ. And that impacts every nation
and every people group in the whole world, doesn't it?
So he's the witness. He's the faithful testimony.
He's the one who's sticking his neck out in the midst of a
culture that doesn't want to hear what it is he has to say.
And you and I are in a culture right now that people really
aren't interested in what your opinion is or what you think is
right or wrong or biblical. The majority of the culture we
live in is Pagan. They look at the percentages bar
and it's like 5545. Maybe the people that still
believe in some judeo-christian value in their hearts and in
their lives and their families. But it's never too late to pray
for God to move and bring revival.
As bad as things might look on horizon, and as messed up as
everything seems to be right now, would God turn the tides of
the hearts of the human race toward Him again, where we might
begin to move in the direction that He'll bless and not curse?
That's my hope, that's my prayer.
Just because things are going wrong and they don't look good,
it's not usually going to affect how I experience my life on a
daily basis. I have joy in my life.
I have so much to be thankful for.
I got a wonderful family and a wonderful church community to be
part of and serve and got my health.
As far as I know at this point in time, God's faithful to
provide. There's so much to be thankful
for, isn't there? And we need to focus on, as the
Bible said, whatsoever things are pure and lovely and just and
a good report. I don't need to turn on media
and get bad reports all day long and all that.
There's people making $1,000,000.
I'm making nothing. All I do is get upset when I
hear what they say. Most of the time I write.
But I'm like, you know, I don't like this.
You know, it's making me depressed.
Turn it off. It's not a good report.
And you need and I need, we need to build into each other things
that are pure lovely, Justin, a good report.
We need to build each other up. You need to build your children
up. You need to build your wives or
husbands up in the things of God.
And when you come and you worship on Sundays here,
whenever you come in the small groups, whatever you're involved
in, rejoice in the fact that you still have the ability to serve
God. No one's grabbing you and taking
you before a court of anarchist and, and, and threatening to
take your life if you don't shut up, right?
We have a time, such a time as this to be witnesses through the
airwaves, through the media, through one-on-one relationships
and conversations. Praise God, right?
I mean, he's the God of all hope, isn't he?
He's the God of all comfort. Too many Christians are walking
around. Oh.
This is terrible. What's going on?
And nothing's going to ever get better and the world's going to
hell in a handbasket and oh, Jesus is coming.
Take Me Out now so I don't have to pay my credit card debt off.
Tomorrow, right? Spend time with Him.
The more time you spend with him, the better things get.
The least amount of time you spend with him, the worse things
get. So Jesus, He's the answer.
Jesus is the only answer to every need of the human heart.
Amen. Thanks for joining us on today's
edition of Living Waters of Grace, a ministry of Calvary
Chapel, Westmoreland. Today, Pastor Clark is teaching
about the Book of Acts. As we learn more about Acts, it
becomes clear that the early church didn't miss a single
opportunity to share the gospel. In nearly every chapter, you see
apostles like Peter and Paul stepping into conversations,
crowds, and crises with boldness, ready to proclaim the
name of Jesus. Their example challenges us to
consider how we might step into gospel moments in our own lives.
What doors might God open this week for you to speak truth,
offer hope, or live out your faith in a way that points
others to Him? The story of Acts reminds us we
are part of the same mission. Today, let's live with eyes open
and hearts ready to respond. We hope you are challenged by
today's message. If you're in the Greensburg, PA
area, we'd love to see you in person this Sunday at 10:30 AM
at 400 E Pittsburgh St. Unit 6B.
For more information, visit calvarychapelonline.com.
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