This is Living Waters of Grace, the teaching ministry of Clark
Wofford, senior pastor of Calvary Chapel of Westmoreland,
County of Greensburg, PA. Now here's Pastor Clark as he
continues teaching through God's Word.
We learned through church history and what the early
church did that we need to remember his death often, not
once a month or once a quarter or twice a year.
Jesus said as often as you drink the cup and you eat the spread,
you remember my death till I come again.
So it celebrates him. It thrills him when he looks at
the church as wow, they still remember what I did for them.
There are certain holidays we celebrate yearly to help us
remember important people and important points in our history.
There are days dedicated to individuals such as Martin
Luther King, Junior George Washington, and Abraham Lincoln.
There are national holidays like veteran's day and Memorial Day.
Don't forget the religious holidays like Christmas and
Easter. In his message today, Pastor
Clark urges you to remember often the sacrifice that Jesus
made for you on the cross. Now here's Pastor Clark in Acts
chapter 20 with today's edition of Living Waters of Grace.
Good to see everybody smiling faces.
Here we are in the book of Acts this morning.
If you have your Bibles, turn to Acts chapter 20.
We welcome all those who are here.
If you're new and visiting, we welcome you.
We're glad you're here. Also, those who are streaming
and watching on YouTube and Facebook, glad you're here as
well. So we look at the chapter 20
this morning and it says after the uproar had ceased, Paul
called the disciples to himself and embraced them and departed
to go to Macedonia. I was finished up in Acts 19,
and that was when Paul was in Ephesus, and Ephesus was a
really Pagan city, a godless city, and yet there was a
revival going on there, a lot of people coming to know Jesus
because of the ministry and the teaching of the Word of God.
Paul spent about three years in this city teaching daily in the
school of Tyranus, about 6 hours a day, six days a week.
So anybody that had the opportunity to be there with
Paul had really gotten grounded in the Word and really impacted
a lot of the Jewish people as well as the Gentiles were coming
faith in Christ And the people that were selling trinkets and
various items of idolatry were losing their income because more
and more people were becoming believers and they weren't
buying this junk anymore. It didn't mean anything anymore.
And so they were upset and they were accusing Paul of anarchy
and the government and destroying the economy and all
kind of other things. Paul disallowed the process to
go on and he took the accusations and there was a
defense and someone unlikely stood up on behalf of Paul
saying he hasn't broken any laws.
If you guys have an issue, you need to deal with this in a a
legal way, not a riotous way. And so it it's sort of died of
its own energy. And then Paul was leaving the
city because it began to become dangerous there for him to
actually do ministry. And so after this all happened,
we're in verse 20 now, and this all went down.
Paul very much loved the people he ministered to and ministered
with and he called them to himself and, and he embraced
them. And I noticed when we get
together, a lot of us are huggers.
Some of us aren't. Some of us give each other fist
bumps. Some of us say, don't touch me.
You know, we're all in different levels, right?
But this idea of embrace, usually embrace people you just
are really excited to be with or see or love or appreciate.
And that that happened. And Paul was definitely a guy
that loved to embrace people. He loved the people that he
served the Lord with. And so now he's going to go to
Macedonia. And Macedonia is a city in, in
Greece, outside of Greece, outside the confines of the
central city of Greece. When I was in Thessaloniki,
Macedonia was about an hour and a half away.
Northwest or northeast. I believe that's where a Phillip
and Lynn Jackson serve the Lord in Macedonia.
We support them as missionaries. They'll be back here to give us
an update sometime in May, I believe.
And, and that when he had gone over that region, he encouraged
them with many words. He came to Greece and stayed
three months. Paul was an encourager.
So all the churches that he had planted and been around and been
involved with, he always was praying for the people and
interested in how they were doing.
And so he wanted to go visit these churches and and bring
encouragement. Paul was a minister of
encouragement. And that's what we want to be
here for you guys to encourage you.
We all need to be encouraged in the things of God and he
encouraged it says with many words.
These these weren't short times when he was with him.
He spent some real quality time teaching and and encouraging him
in the in the Scriptures of the Old Testament scriptures and I'm
sure some of the letters he had already been in process of
writing and also the Gospels of the history.
They had certain fragments of the Bible at this time.
It wasn't completed like ours, but there was enough truth to
give to the people to help them in their walk with the Lord.
And so he's in this region of Greece now, and this is actually
the city of Corinth. It says he stayed here three
months. And Corinth is another city that
had a lot of unbelief and paganism and ungodliness in it.
There was churches there. Churches have been planted by
Paul, but there was many people that were still lost and
confused and even believers who got mixed up and some bad
teaching at time. Paul felt compelled that he
needed to be there for about 3 months.
This is actually the city where he wrote the book of Romans.
And Romans will be the next book I'll be teaching on when we get
through the book of the Acts. So you can feel free to read
ahead of an amazing, amazing book, the book of Romans.
And it says when the Jews, this is where the Jews hassled Paul,
they plotted against him. He was about to sail to Syria
and he decided to return through Macedonia and Sofitor Berea
accompanied him to Asia. Also aristocrats and Segundus of
the Thessalonians and Gaius and Derby of Derby and Timothy and
Ticchias and Trompheus of Asia. These men going ahead waited for
us at Troas. So these are men you might have
remembered Pastor Lewis mentioning in his teaching in
Second Timothy. These were servants of the Lord
in these various churches that Paul had planted.
And ministry is always team related.
It's not singular. It's not dependent on one
person. Ministry is dependent on all of
us, men, women, boys and girls that know the Lord Jesus, kids.
Everybody's involved in the ministry of the Lord, but Paul
understood the importance of working alongside men who were
called by God to be leaders in the local churches.
Paul didn't do this stuff himself.
It would be impossible to do it himself any more than Lewis Rye.
You know, we can't do this without you guys and your
ministries, your help, your prayers, your giving, your
service, whatever it is you do here does your encouragement
along with George and, and John as elders and, and Tom and Nick
and Brad as, as deacons and, and all the other teachers, men and
women in the body. It's just thrilling.
So when Paul is, is making this journey right now, there's two
issues going on. He's he's teaching the people
and encouraging them there. You never get done teaching and
encouraging. This is something that has to be
done basically daily. I don't know about you, but I
need to be encouraged in the Lord every day of my life.
I really do. And and I believe you do too.
And so this is the the focus. But they were also collecting an
offering in these various cities.
They were going because the church in Jerusalem was under a
lot of persecution at the time and poverty and they needed
help. So not anywhere they teaching,
but they were trying to find ways that they could help the
this is the brothers and sisters in in Jerusalem.
And so all these guys that are mentioned here are, are leaders
in the various regions that they had been positioned in by Paul
when the churches were planted. After Paul planted the churches,
the men who were put in charge then were responsible to ordain
and, and and raise up other leaders to help so the church
would keep growing. And so he sent these guys out
and he told him they would catch up later.
Intro ass. But we sailed away from Philippi
after the Days of Unleavened Bread.
This was Passover. Paul wanted to get back to
Jerusalem to celebrate Passover, but it wasn't going to be
possible. And in five days he joined them
at trust where we stayed seven days.
So I'm sure it was a wonderful time to be with his fellow Co
laborers in the Lord. When I go to these pastors
conferences, I see guys I've known for 27 years.
We're all much older now than we were when we first started in
the ministry, but it's just neat to see brothers keep on keeping
on And you catch up. How's the work going?
How's the how's the believers doing?
And you share about the churches and what the Lord's doing and
how he's encouraging people. And it's just a wonderful
opportunity to fellowship. And this is this is what Paul
was doing with these folks at this particular time.
And then in verse 7, it tells us that he's ministering A Troas.
And Troas is a city in the region of of Greece and Turkey
on the Aegean Sea. Beautiful place still exists
there. And he's he's going to again
minister here. And it says now on the first day
of the week when the disciples came together to break bread.
Now the first day of the week was Sunday.
This was considered the Lord's day.
The Jews represented worship on the Sabbath, which is Saturday.
The Bible tells us in the Old Testament to remember the
Sabbath day and keep it holy. But we're, we're not Jewish
people, so we don't focus on Saturday.
But really every day you should be worshipping the Lord.
I mean, you know, it's a, you pick one day or the other.
I mean, I don't know about you, but I need to worship God Monday
through Sunday, right? But Sunday is when we've
gathered together and the early church began to move away from
the traditions of Judaism and they began to meet on Sunday,
the 1st day of the week. And we're not under the old
cover, nor are we under Jewish law.
But the Jewish people that worship on the Sabbath, praise
God. You know, there's a certain
church groups that believe that they need to continually worship
on the Sabbath. I'm not going to get in
arguments about that. I'm just glad they worship the
Lord, right? And they're meeting together,
worshiping the Lord. And so anyway, this is what
they're doing now. They're getting together, read
carefully to break bread. And that is translated from the
word Eucharisto, which is the Eucharist, the celebration of
the Lord's Supper. They took the supper every time
they gathered, and that's why we do it here.
We learn through church history and what the early church did
that we need to remember his death often, not once a month or
once a quarter or twice a year. Jesus said as often as you drink
the cup and you eat the spread, you remember my death till I
come again. So it celebrates him.
It thrills him when he looks at the church as wow, they still
remember what I did for them. They're not forgetting.
It still means something to them.
They know this has changed their life and it continually changes
their life. It's powerful to celebrate this
celebration of what the Lord's done through his death, burial
and resurrection. And then it says Paul, ready to
depart the next day, spoke to them and continued his message
until midnight. So it reminds me what was going
on in Asbury. They didn't just worship for a
couple hours. They were going 24/7 down there.
It's interesting if you read about that.
It was so amazing. Thousands of people traveling
around the world to this be there and experience this
encounter with God like this. There was no idea like I got to
stop and eat or I got to stop and study.
It got to be so intense that the professor in the present college
finally had to shut it down. Not so you can't shut a move of
God down, but like they just said, like you guys got to get
back to school, you got to get your degree, you got to go to
classes, finals or next week. And so they, the last service
was Thursday night. But but whenever the Holy
Spirit's moving, you know, usually not looking at the clock
or worrying about what time it is or what you got to do later,
you're just so enthralled with the presence of God and what it
is you're receiving that you lose track of time.
And so this is interesting here, Paul's preaching and, and he's
going into until midnight and there were many lamps in the
upper room. Now, back in those days, the
church didn't meet in buildings like this.
They usually met in houses until later on when they were able to
get real estate and property and that kind of stuff.
And they congregated in larger groups.
But this was in an upper room of a house, and they had these oil
lamps burning. And oil lamps can put off sort
of like a noxious toxic smell and give you a headache if you
don't have a window open or something like that.
And so there was a lot of lamps in there to have lights so the
people could read and see and that kind of stuff.
And, and in a window, said a certain young man named Uticus.
Now Uticus, a young man translated, was probably
anywhere from 7 to 14 years old who was sinking into a deep
sleep. So everybody was so focused on
Paul. I don't know whose parents this
young man belong to, but you think I would say get away from
that window. That's not safe to be sitting on
that window ledge. But he's sitting there and
people aren't paying attention and he's getting sleepy and
sleepier and sleepier until the until the point that he's
overcome by the sleep. And some of you sometimes are
sleeping in here, but at least you're sitting down, right?
And you're not going to fall anywhere.
That's a that's a good thing. But this guy, this young man, he
was overcome by this sleep and Paul kept speaking and he fell
down from the third story that's really high and was taken up
dead. So basically he fell and he
died, OK. But Paul went down and fell on
him and embrace him said do not trouble yourselves for his life
is in him. And now when he had come up, he
had broken bread and eaten and taken a long while, even till
Daybreak he departed and they brought the young man in alive
and they were not a little comforted.
So to remind you of back in Kings and Chronicles, when
Elijah and Elijah fell on the, the body of the young child and
different ways they did it and the child came to life.
You know, you wonder, you know, Paul knew the Old Testament.
Maybe he's thinking, well, I'll try this.
You never know what the Lord might do, right?
And I thought about all the times I might have had the
opportunity to do that. If I would have, people would
have thought I was crazy. But what if, what if the Lord?
I mean, the Lord can do anything.
Can he? Can he raise the dead?
I mean, he can. He'd surely raised us from the
dead spiritually. We were all dead in trespasses
and sins. The Bible says, and you hath he
quickened and made alive who were dead in Christ.
And so, you know, the move of the of the Spirit of God is
incredible. And I'm sure people were
shocked. They were probably saying, well,
he probably just had a concussion.
He really didn't die. No, this is this.
He was physically dead and and the Lord did a miracle here, but
it wasn't a lot of fanfare. Paul did it very humbly and he
went back up and they continued had a meal together.
They broke the bread. They had the Lord's Supper and
it says they talked along, wow, even till Daybreak.
So this was a real powerful spiritual time that they were
experiencing together. And then he went ahead in verse
13 to the ship and sailed the Assos they're intending to take
Paul on board for. So he had given orders intending
himself to go on foot. So Paul was apprehensive and he
was warned. Don't go on that boat.
There's a lot of Jewish people that don't like you.
And they wanted to take him out. They thought maybe he might be
murdered on that ship. And so he said he would walk and
catch them later on. And he, he, he walked down, they
went on the boat and he went and met them at Assos.
And then they got another boat and he took him on board there
and came to Methylene and we sailed from there.
And the next day came opposite chaos.
The following day we ride at Samos and stayed at Troglium.
The next day we came to Melita. So if you look on your map,
these are all regions around Greece and Turkey at the time,
actual cities that existed. Some of their names have
changed. Now Melitis is about 30 miles
South of Ephesus. And Paul has a desire to meet
his elders, the people who are leading the churches in in
Ephesus. And these are home churches.
So you had multiple elders, and Paul had decided to sail pass
Ephesus. He knew that if he would have
gone to Ephesus again, he had just been there for three years,
He wouldn't be able to have time to get back to Jerusalem for
Pentecost, which is 50 days after Passover.
He'd already missed Passover, and now his focus is to get back
to Jerusalem so that he would have not have to spend time in
Asia, for he was hurrying to be at Jerusalem, if possible, in
the day of Pentecost. These events of history, even
back then of people remembering the significance of Passover and
also Pentecost, and it's something not to forget.
And so Paul's now going to exhort these elders.
Paul had the gift of prophecy and he prayed that we would have
the gift of prophecy as as pastors not for telling the
future per SE, but the ability to build the church up edify,
exhort Exhort is worn people and to comfort people and then the
ministry of the teaching of the word.
The most important thing is to have the gift of prophecy so
that these three things are occurring simultaneously.
Unaware to the speaker that the Holy Spirit is using the word to
build you up in your faith, to draw you closer to Jesus, to
warn you if you're in places in your life that you shouldn't be
spiritually and you would repent and get right with God.
And then to comfort you if you're struggling and you're
burdened and you're overwhelmed and you're really ready to throw
the towel. And that somehow the Holy Spirit
would remind you that the Lord is with you and you know he,
he'll never leave you or forsake you.
And so it says from elitist, he sent to Ephesus and called for
the elders of the church. So he asked them to travel down
and, and when they had come to him, he said to them, and this
is a very, very powerful section of the Bible here because you're
going to hear from Paul's own heart his commitment to the
ministry, the gospel, and to the people and to the servants of
the Lord. You know, from the first day
that I came to Asia and what manner I always lived among you.
So Paul was not a perfect man any more than any of us are, but
he had the call of God on him and his whole desire was to
serve the Lord. And it says he served the Lord
with all humility, with many tears and trials, which happened
to me, but applauding of the Jews.
So Paul was a man who did ministry, but it wasn't without
conflict. There was difficulty.
There was arguments, there was attack, there was slander.
He went through all kind of things as a servant of God that
he just took and just kept kept on keeping on.
He didn't quit, He didn't get down on things.
He didn't say, well, this is getting too hard and this is
miserable because people they don't like me or they're always
plotting against me or whatever. That was just part of the call,
part of the ministry. And he hung in there and he was
a humble man. He depended on the Lord to
sustain him and everything He did.
And it says how I kept back nothing that was helpful.
In other words, there wasn't anything that there wasn't
anything that he he would say, well, boy, I don't know if I
should tell them this when the Lord laid on His heart for them
to hear something He never like parse the word and say, well,
this section of Scripture, I'll tell them, but this thing I'm
not going to tell them. No, he was straight up all the
time speaking the truth and love and giving them everything that
the Lord had given him. He shared all the riches of
Christ that the Lord had given him personally with all those he
ministered to. He said I kept back nothing that
was helpful, but proclaimed it to you and taught you publicly
and from house to house testifying to and also the
Greeks, repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus
Christ. The message never changed.
He consistently went from place to place saying the same thing
the same way over and over and over again.
And you might say, well, why did he have to just keep talking
about repentance toward God and faith toward our Lord Jesus
Christ? Well, that's the gospel.
Everyone needs to hear the importance of needing to repent
of their sin, and repentance means changing your mind.
You're used to going this way, which is a way toward hell.
The highway to hell, the road that leads to destruction, is
broad, and many are those on that road heading toward the
Cliff where they'll eventually end up in hell.
Repentance is I'm not wanting to go there.
I got to stop this behavior. I need a Savior.
I need someone to help me not do what I keep doing over and over
and over again. I need a new life.
I need to change. I need a fresh start and that's
repentance. Then you're turning to the road
that's narrow. The Bible says it leads to life
and few there are that find that road.
Most people are on the road, the broad road to destruction.
There's less people on the narrow Rd. that leads to life,
so Paul knew the importance. As any pastor or teacher or
Christian should know. We need to let people know they
need to repent. Amen.
They need to get right with God today, not tomorrow, not next
week. Paul also said today is a day of
salvation. If you hear his voice, his
Spirit speak in your heart, this is the time when you say, Lord,
you're right, you got me. I know I need you now.
I know I'm a Sinner. Lord, forgive me.
Come into my life and save me for my sin and get me on this
path that leads to life, repentance toward God.
I've offended God of sinned against God and now my faith
needs to be and what Jesus Christ has done for me.
For Christ took your sin and my sin upon himself upon the cross,
and he took the punishment for my sin and your sin, so that I
don't have to take it, and you don't have to take it.
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.
And 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
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