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.
Whenever the Word of God goes forth, it has this power to
convict us of our sin, our mistakes, our weaknesses, our
ungodliness, our selfishness, our lust, our bitterness, our
unforgiveness, all the things that are in the human heart
because of sin. So whenever we hear the Word, we
have to repent, and repent is a change of mind.
Whenever the Word of God really hits you and hits me it, it's a
call to action. It's a call to change.
God's Word is like a mirror showing you the truth about your
heart. In today's message, Pastor Clark
describes how Scripture can Pierce through convicting you of
sin. It might expose your weaknesses
or self centeredness, revealing what's in your human heart.
When you hear His word, it calls you to repent, to change your
mind and direction. It's not just words, it's a
prompt to transform your life. Are you letting God's Word
convict and change your heart when it speaks to you now?
Here's Pastor Clark in Acts Chapter 3 with today's edition
of Living Waters of Grace. Well, let's open in prayer.
We're in the book of the Acts today, Acts chapter 3.
If you have your Bibles, you can turn there.
And we will be going through this particular book verse by
verse like we do all the time. Let's pray.
Father, we're thankful today that you are the good and
gracious King. Lord, we're grateful how you
penetrate our hearts by your Holy Spirit, Lord, how you
activate this life in US, daily life in Christ by the Spirit of
God that Lord, there's never a moment that we're left alone
that you are with us 24/7. And Lord, I'm also grateful for
this desire that you put on us as your kids to go deeper in you
to discover you more. Lord, to be amazed of your
wonder and your grace. And Lord, it is your grace that
you supplied to us, that we might first of all be recipients
of the grace and the love and the mercy, but that Lord, then
we would be able to be conduits that can send us forth from our
lives. Lord, we know that in our own
strength and our own ability, Lord, we have limitations
spiritually. We only can go so far, but Lord,
when you give us grace you, you expand the horizons of our
ability to bless and impact others.
And that's what we ask for each of us.
And Lord, just bless this day together.
And we pray for your church throughout the earth today and
every city and every community where the word is clearly being
taught. May you bless the pastors and
the churches. And we pray these things in
Jesus name, Amen. So before I start today in this
continuing teaching on Acts chapter 3, verse 17, I want to
review a couple things in regard to what it is that's happening
in us as we study this book together.
First of all, the focal point of this book is Jesus Christ, like
every other book of the Bible, but even more so the work of of
God, the Holy Spirit. God is triune Father, Son and
Holy Spirit and the Spirit of God is obviously teaching us the
word of God. He is the teacher, Jesus said,
and he will guide us into all truth.
He's also the comforter and he's the encourager and he's the
helper. And so as we study this and we
look at the apostles lives, we have to see how different they
are because of the Holy Spirit in them.
I think of the the ministry and the responsibility we all have
as as servants of the Lord and to love others, love people with
a supernatural love, and we can't do that apart from the
Holy Spirit. We need the grace of God to
impart to us this supernatural love.
This is not something you or I can manifest in our own
strength, our own ability, our love runs short, our love runs
dry at times, even though we know where to love our enemies
or where to love people, where to care about people.
It's real easy to be self-centered and self-serving.
And so we always need to ask the Holy Spirit to fill us again,
over and over and over again. The the work of the Holy Spirit
isn't a one time experience when we first get saved.
The the need of the Spirit of God is something we need 24/7.
We need to be filled with the Spirit and we can ask the Holy
Spirit to fill us and he will for whatever particular
responsibility we have this in everyday life.
And so the life of, of Peter and the apostles is so different
than what we read in the Gospels and how they acted at times.
And so we'll, we'll study and we'll see this experience of, of
the Spirit in Peter's life as as he deals with the persecution
that's beginning to occur in his life because of the ministry
that he's been called to. So I'm going to read from verse
11 to 17 just to review what we covered.
And then we'll we'll start detail study in verse 17.
So this is Peter preaching in Solomon's portico in verse 11.
Now as a lame man who was healed held on to Peter and John, all
the people ran together to them in the porch, which is called
Solomon's, greatly amazed. So when Peter saw it, he
responded to the people. Men of Israel, why do you marvel
at this, or why look so intently at us, as though by our own
power or godliness we have made this man walk?
The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers,
glorified His servant Jesus, whom you delivered up and denied
in the presence of Pilate when he was determined to let him go.
But you denied the Holy One and the just and asked for a
murderer to be granted to you and killed the Prince of life
whom God raised from the dead at which we are witnesses.
And His name, through faith in His name, has made this man
strong whom you see and know. Yes, the faith which comes
through him has given him this perfect soundness in the
presence of you all. So Peter's proclaiming this
miracle through the work of the Holy Spirit.
If you remember this weeks before the denial of of Peter in
that situation where they were asking him if he was affiliated
with Jesus, he was afraid and he said no, actually denied him
three times. Now, how different is he?
He's speaking with boldness the the gospel of Jesus Christ and
he said verse 17. Yet now, brethren, I know that
you did it in ignorance and as did also your rulers.
So he's letting them know that what they did, which was
horrific. Obviously being responsible for
the crucifixion of Christ, not only them, but all of us.
Our sin is obviously the responsibility of ourselves in
regard to how we've lived our lives that Jesus had to die for
our sins. But he's telling them that in
their blindness, in their ignorance, they did this as also
the rulers did. And that's grace.
That's a message of grace that Peter's preaching to these
people. He's not castigating or putting
them down or making making them feel worse than they probably
feel already as they begin to get convicted by the Spirit of
God. But he's letting them know that
the things they did, they did because they were blind, they
couldn't see who the Lord was. They they didn't realize their
need of, of God. And, and so he's being merciful
to them and, and gentle, but also bold and truthful.
And he said in verse 18, But those things which God foretold
by the mouth of all his prophets that the Christ would suffer, he
has thus fulfilled. So in other words, they were
responsible obviously for the mandate of of having Christ
crucified, choosing Jesus to be martyred instead of Barabbas.
He's also letting them know that all this was prophesized in the
Old Testament through the prophets of God, that this event
had to come to pass. There was no other way that
mankind could be saved or redeemed or forgiven or cleansed
from their sin apart from the work of Jesus Christ and His
death, burial and resurrection. So he told them that what Christ
had accomplished and what He suffered was a fulfillment of
what was prophesized by the prophets thousands of years
before this event actually occurred and as a result of what
had happened. Peter then speaks and tells them
in verse 19, Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins
may be blotted out so that the times of refreshing may come
from the presence of the Lord. So what happens is whenever the
word of God goes forth, it has this power to convict us of our
sin, our mistakes, our weaknesses, our ungodliness, our
selfishness, our lust, our bitterness, our unforgiveness,
all the things that are in the human heart because of sin.
So whenever we hear the word, we have to repent and repent is a
change of mind. Whenever the word of God really
hits you and hits me, it's a call to action.
It's a call to change. It's a call to transformation.
It isn't like you just hear it. Well, yeah, I know.
Like I'm not living right and this is wrong, but you know, it
is what it is. No, When God really gets ahold
of your heart, He begins to give you this desire to want to
change your evil ways. You want to go in a different
direction. You want your life to change.
And that's the evidence of really having a heart that's
been hit by the Lord and convicted by the Spirit to
change our ways. Repent therefore and be
converted. Now we cannot be converted or
born again or transformed or saved.
Whatever word you want to put in there in lieu of the word
converted, you can't be transformed unless you repent.
So the message of the gospel has to have this message of
repentance. Jesus said repent for the
Kingdom of heaven is in hand. I mean, a lot of people have a
God loves you, has a wonderful plan for you.
And and that's true, but without the message of repentance,
people will receive that message that their lives won't change
because it's a feel good kind of story, right?
There's no emphasis on why we need to be saved or no emphasis
on why we need to change because the gospel fully has not been
proclaimed. Jesus fully proclaimed the
gospel. John the Baptist proclaimed the
truth of the need of repentance. And the apostles all through the
New Testament talk about this need to repent.
And the church today needs to to revive this message of
repentance and make sure that we all know that this is what is
required of us in order to be forgiven.
We have to have this desire and this attitude to change our
ways. And this isn't just when we get
saved. We are to repent continually.
The word metanoia is an active verb tense.
So it's all day long. If I have a wrong attitude, I
have a wrong action. I have a wrong thought, a wrong
focus, right? We all know what that's like,
that the Spirit of God convicts us, and I need to say that's
wrong. Lord, forgive me and go the
direction that the Lord's leading me.
Not ignore the Lord or not blow it off, but deal with what it is
I have to deal with now. Repentance in the heart is
uncomfortable at times because we don't like to think about
like our inadequacy or, you know, fallenness or weaknesses.
We, we sort of want to have a better opinion of ourselves than
we should many times. And I'm not talking about having
a a bad opinion, but I'm, I'm talking about having a true
opinion. We're not to think of ourselves
more highly than we ought to think, right?
So I'm vulnerable. You're vulnerable to the work of
the Holy Spirit and I need corrected in my life.
Cindy reminds me of that often if you're married, you know your
spouse is, you're the second person to the Holy Spirit in
their life. They point things out when you
need to make some changes and address some things, right?
And that's a good thing. Even though many times we, we
want to excuse things and not listen to them.
But I I find as I want to go deeper with the Lord, and I know
you do too, I just don't want to have this superficial
relationship with God. I want to have this intimate,
close friendship with God as I know He desires to have with me.
And in order for that to be happening and having fellowship
with God, I have to respond to what it is He's speaking to my
heart to deal with. And that is important.
It's not so much anymore to be saved.
I'm saved, you're saved. When Christ died, He died for
all your sins, past, present and future.
But it's the relationship with God, it's like if you, if you
have a friend or a loved one or someone you work with that
you've offended and you know you've offended them, you
usually should have the desire to want to be reconciled and
make amends if you can and say, please forgive me for this.
And I was wrong. And most people in in life are,
are have a tendency to be gracious and forgive.
And that's a good thing. But you know, for God, our
relationship with him, he loves us and forgives us even when I
don't ask for forgiveness in my daily life.
But what happens is my heart will then begin to grow, grow
cold and distant and hard. And sometimes when you find
yourself in a position in life where the word isn't affecting
you like you know it should or you aren't like worshipping God
or you don't want to attend any kind of Bible studies or church
meetings or whatever, you're, you're, you're moving away.
It's always a, a picture of backsliding or refusal to
repent. And then our heart begins become
hardened, as Paul says, through the deceitfulness of sin, sins
very deceitful, we can justify our behavior and our actions and
our attitudes, thinking that we're right and everybody else
is wrong. And and God's like, hey, you
know, you got to deal with this. So I'm dealing with stuff on a
daily basis. And it's not a negative thing or
a cloud thing or God's not a God of condemnation, is he?
He's not a God of thrown guilt trips on us.
It's all about this love that he wants us to experience every
day. He wants to love on us.
And it breaks his heart whenever we have things in the way in our
lives that we can't receive that love.
We can't experience that love, We can't interact with that
love. So this need of repentance is a
very, very important message. Now, the majority of the people
at this time were listeners and they weren't believers.
And so Peter is obviously throwing the net out so that
people would do what he's, you know, commanding them to do,
repent and be converted. And what happens is when these
people, and there was 3000 that got saved in the first sermon of
Peters, there's approximately 2000 it says in the Bible that
came to know the Lord during this sermon.
So there's now 5000 people, but there's a lot of people that are
listening that still aren't receiving this message,
especially the religious leaders, they were very tuned
out to Christ being the Messiah. To this day, the nation of
Israel for the most part is tuned out that Jesus is the Lord
and the Messiah. And so he tells them that if
they repent, their sins will be blotted out.
And that word blotted out means totally erased.
And there'll be no more record of their guilt ever again for
all eternity. So that the times of refreshing
may come from the presence of the Lord.
So not only are they forgiven, but then you know what it's like
when you get forgiven, you are refreshed.
You sense God's favor, his smile.
It's, it's a joyful thing to have our sins forgiven.
It's a joyful thing to have relationships reestablished
through forgiveness and, and reconciliation.
There's nothing like it. It's, it's just refreshing and
it, and that kind of refreshing only can come from this presence
of the Lord. And I desire, and I know you do
too, I want to have a deeper awareness of the presence of the
Lord in my life. It's what makes life worth
living. It's what makes life joyful and
peaceful. I don't want to live like
mentally, I know this stuff, but it doesn't affect my moment by
moment existence. I, I want to be able to, to look
at the creation and look at the beautiful day that He's given us
today and have a praise and a worship of my heart for his
mercies and his love and His kindness as the good and
gracious King. What a beautiful song to think
about and reflect upon that He has done all this stuff because
He loves us. And so for us to interact and
receive it and experience that, we have to have these kind of
hearts that are conditioned to keep turning toward God, keep
turning toward God, keep turning to God.
And then he says something profound here in verse 20.
And that he may send Jesus Christ.
He was preached to you before whom heaven must receive until
the times of restoration of all things which God has spoken by
the mouth of his holy prophet since the world began.
So there's this indication here that if the nation of Israel
would have accepted the Lord nationally, that the second
coming of Christ would have happened at that particular
time. Profound insight that the Lord,
you know, he wants to come and establish his Kingdom, but he's
waiting and he's waiting and he's waiting for the masses of
the world to turn toward him until that last person is saved.
It's called the time of the fullness of Gentiles in the book
of Romans, when that last person, wherever they are in the
middle of the world, some tribe somewhere or some major city,
that last person, whenever the body of Christ is full, that the
trump will sound and the rapture will occur.
The dead in Christ will rise, and we which are alive will be
caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in
the air and say, shall we ever be with the Lord?
And then the second coming of Christ at the end of the
seven-year tribulation. But when the Lord is preaching
through Peter, in this particular instance, you got to
realize that the audience was primarily Jewish.
The speakers were Jewish, the leaders of the synagogue were
Jewish, the population was in that area of Jerusalem
predominantly Jewish. The Lord came to His own
initially and the Bible says the his own received him not
eventually. The gospel was open to the
audience of the world, the Gentiles, everyone else.
But God chose through Abraham in Genesis chapter 12 that there
would be this covenant made with this group of people that lived
in the nation of Israel. And through the seed of Abraham,
which would obviously be Jesus, all the nations of the earth
would be blessed. That's all of us.
The whole world would be blessed because of what God had done in
and through the nation of Israel.
They were the people that God utilized as the prophets.
The greatest prophet of that time was known as Moses.
In verse 22 it says For Moses truly said to the fathers all
those who were in leadership at the time in the nation of
Israel. The Lord your God will raise up
for you a prophet like me. From your brethren, Him you
shall hear, and all things whatever He says to you, and it
shall be that to every soul who will not hear.
That prophet shall be utterly destroyed from among the people.
So Moses spoke about the Messiah who was to come.
The nation of Israel has gone through tremendous heartache,
burned in ovens, all kind of things going on.
And it isn't over yet. The, the, the army of the north,
Russia in the last days will be that country that will descend
upon them to try to destroy them.
And you used to think, boy, I don't know, it doesn't seem
possible. Russia seems like a very calm
country, right? Sort of picking up some of the
ideologies of capitalism and free enterprise and religious
freedom and all that, and then all of a sudden this rogue
leader in Russia has become a tyrant, right?
Do you think it's possible that if he does this to Ukraine, he
could do this to Israel? The intentions prophetically are
directed that way. And in time this will all be
unfolded. I don't know if it's going to be
in our lifetime, another 100 years, whatever 1000, but it is
prophetically in the Bible regarding what will happen in
that last period of the seven-year tribulation, in the
last 3 1/2 years. So Moses is being referenced by
Peter. Peter knows the prophets and
knows the Old Testament Torah in the Scriptures.
This is this is how they preach. They preach from the Old
Testament. Now as New Covenant believers,
we preach the gospel primarily from the New Testament.
We can use the Old Testament, but the New Covenant is far
better than the Old Covenant. The Old Covenant we learn
historically of how God worked through his nation Israel.
Unfortunately, almost to no avail.
The nation of Israel, in spite of having all these blessings
and promises, they've still refused to believe for the most
part that Jesus is the Messiah. And so Peter's telling them that
Moses told you guys that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah.
You're to hear from him. Verse 24.
Yes. And all the prophets from Samuel
and those who follow, as many as have spoken have also foretold
these days that this wasn't Moses, there was others.
You are sons of the prophets and of the covenant which God made
with our fathers saying to Abraham, and in your seed all
the families of the earth shall be blessed to you first.
God having raised up his servant, Jesus sent him to bless
you and turning away every one of you from your iniquities.
And so the gospel is the same today as it was in the days of
the book of the Acts. It's still empowered by the the
work of the Holy Spirit and it convicts people and it causes
them to see their need of Jesus. But for some reason right now,
and you can study this later, we went through it extensively when
we went through the book of Romans.
You can read Romans chapter Doctor 9:10 and 11:00 and it'll
sort of encapsulate all this plan that God has for Israel
while they're blind and part so that the the gospel would come
to us and we would receive it and that eventually Israel and
the Jewish people would become jealous of us because we've
become partakers of this covenant that God gave to
Abraham. They've sort of cut themselves
off from the covenant temporarily because of their
unbelief. Thank.
You 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
For more information where you can also join our e-mail list,
submit prayer requests, give online and download our mobile
app. If you are in the Greensburg
area, you can listen to Grace FM on the new 91.7 frequency.
Pray about helping support the new station that will reach
thousands more listeners. Send gifts to Grace FMPO Box
716, Greensburg, PA 15601. If you can join us in person,
you can subscribe to the Calvary Chapel Westmoreland YouTube
channel so you'll be alerted when new material becomes
available. We're so grateful that you
joined us today in Acts. TuneIn again soon for another
edition of Living Waters of Grace.