Living Waters of Grace 12.01.25

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.

I don't know if we were told that prior to becoming

believers. If someone said, by the way, if

you commit your life to Christ and you really want to follow

him and be serious about him, you're going to have some

struggles in life, persecution. And how many people would be

willing to sign up for that? No one told me that.

So I just believe real simply, and I'm thankful I did.

But if someone would have told me, if you become a believer,

you're going to have a lot of struggles, I might have had to

think about it a little bit. You may have heard it taught

that if you give your life to Jesus, all your troubles will

disappear. Well, in his message today,

Pastor Clark wants to set a few things straight.

You see, it is true. The biggest problem you'll ever

face in life is sin. So when you give your life to

Christ, you'll be forgiven of your sin and receive eternal

life. But The thing is that when you

follow Christ, you're choosing to do so in hostile territory.

Following Jesus is a difficult journey, but the destination is

eternal life. Now here's Pastor Clark in Acts

Acts 8 · chapter mention

Chapter 8 with today's edition of Living Waters of Grace.

This is Acts chapter 8 where Paul was baptized by Ananias and

Acts 8 · chapter mention

it talked about the things that we're going to occur in his life

and it says there how many things he must suffer for my

name's sake. So Paul was going to suffer a

great deal because he was a follower of now Jesus Christ.

And we don't think about that. We become believers.

We sometimes think that everything is going to be

perfect and awesome and no more problems, no more worries, no

more difficulties. But if you've been a Christian

for any length of time, you know that's just part of the story,

right? There is a lot of wonderful

things we experience, a lot of joy, a lot of overcoming power

in our life. We're not stuck in sin anymore,

but the difficulties we struggle with many times have to do with

people that don't want to identify with us anymore because

we've become believers. Sometimes that happens in a

household where maybe a husband becomes a believer in the wife

isn't yet or vice versa, or kids that aren't interested or family

members. And sometimes you're rejected by

your own family because of your faith in the Lord and that's

very, very painful to deal with. Also sometimes work, sometimes

employers if they find out that you're and zealous through your

faith and following Jesus Christ, they sometimes aren't

interested in promoting you or maybe they're interested in

eliminating your position. This has happened to many people

even in our own country. And so I wanted to look at a

couple verses regarding the difficulty that we have at times

because we're Christians and just be upfront about what we do

go through. And Second Timothy, Pastor Lewis

had taught us on this a few weeks ago.

But second Timothy chapter 3, this is a good reminder

2 Timothy 3 · chapter mention

regarding what will happen when we become followers of Jesus

Christ. It tells us in verse 11 he

speaks about this issue of persevering and persecutions

afflictions which happened to me at Antioch at Iconium at Lystra

what persecutions I endured out of them all the Lord delivered

me. Yes and all who desire to live

godly in Christ Jesus will suffer persecution.

I don't know if we were told that prior to becoming

believers. If someone said by the way, if

you commit your life to Christ and you really want to follow

him and be serious about him. You're going to have some

struggles in life persecution and how many people would be

willing to sign up for that. No one told me that, so I just

believe real simply, and I'm thankful I did.

But if someone would have told me, if you become a believer,

you're going to have a lot of struggles.

I might have had to think about it a little bit, but now it's

too late. I'm already a believer, I have

gone through a lot and then we'll continually go through a

lot as you guys do too, following Jesus Christ.

But I wouldn't turn back or regret anything thus far in my

life. Regardless of the challenges and

difficulties that we experience as believers in Psalm chapter

Psalms 34 · chapter mention

34, this is a tremendous encouragement.

Psalm chapter 34. We'll flip through the Bible a

Psalms 34 · chapter mention

little bit here before we get started in Acts 21 today, but I

just wanted to sort of lay a foundation for why we go through

what we go through, and how the Lord is there to help us

continually. Psalm 34 verses 19 it says many

Psalms 34:19

are the afflictions of the righteous, but the Lord delivers

him out of them all. He guards all his bones, not one

of them is broken. Evil shall slay the wicked, and

those who hate the righteous shall be condemned.

The Lord redeems the soul of His servants, and none of those who

trust in him shall be condemned. I like what it says in verse 17

of that Psalm. The righteous cry out and the

Lord hears and delivers them out of all their troubles.

So we all go through challenges, difficulties, but we can be

assured that when we call upon the Lord, he hears us and he

will eventually bring us through the difficult times.

And I love this. The Lord is near to those who

have a broken heart and say such as have a contrite spirit.

So when we're struggling, when our heart is broken, when we're

overwhelmed, we call upon the Lord, we cry out to him, we ask

for his help. He's always there to listen and

come alongside of us and get us through those challenging times.

Jesus himself and the Beatitudes in Matthew chapter 5 tells us

Matthew 5 · chapter mention

how to deal with the challenges that we go through.

It says in Matthew 10, blessed are those who are persecuted for

righteousness sake, for theirs is the Kingdom of God.

Blessed are you when they revile you and persecute you and say

all kinds of evil against you falsely for my name's sake.

Rejoice and be exceedingly glad, for great is your reward in

heaven. For so they persecuted the

prophets who were before you. And Jesus has written this to

all of us, and we are persecuted.

We can thank the Lord that we are counted worthy as followers

of Jesus Christ to be suffering and challenged at times and have

difficulty from people who don't believe in the Lord and aren't

interested in following Him at this point in time.

And people watch how you and I walk through adversity and

persecutions. We have to show one another that

no matter how hard life can get at times and the challenges that

we face, we're trusting the Lord, right?

We're depending on him. We're not giving up, we're not

complaining, we're not whining. We're just OK, I'm going to

believe God in this challenge. And many times, you know, the

persecution comes this not from people who are unbelievers, but

it comes also from the enemy, the devil.

He comes to steal, rob, kill and destroy.

The devil is our enemies is not our friend and many times

affliction, adversity, financial challenges, health issues,

conflict. This is all part of what we deal

with as followers of Jesus Christ in this world.

Jesus said we will have tribulation, but he said be of

good cheer have overcome the world.

And then the apostle Paul himself that wrote the book of

Romans, you know, he also verifies the fact and we know

what he's been through and study more and acts what he went

through. It says in verse 3.

And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing

that tribulation produces perseverance and perseverance,

character and character hope. Now hope does not disappoint

because the love of God has been poured out in our hearts by the

Holy Spirit who was given to us. So when we have these challenges

and these difficulties in our lives, they cause us to grow

deeper in the Lord, don't they? They humble us.

They make us realize that there's more to life than this.

Focusing on what I can get from this present life in this world.

Whenever I go through struggles and difficulties, it reflects

upon my potential to be superficial as a Christian at

times, not to be all in maybe or be sidetracked by something

else. It's attracting my attention.

And whenever a persecution comes, or an adversity or a

trial or even a chastening of the Lord is discipline, whatever

it causes me to, you know, get on my face before the Lord and

begin to live for what really matters again, right?

Not living for temporal stuff, not living for this, my own

sense of my own opinion or my own feelings or my own hope to

have everything go well all the time.

It doesn't work that way. So the Lord allows the trials

and we, none of us like him, none of us like the persecution,

none of us like the afflictions, none of us like the tribulation,

whatever term you want to call it.

But we all have to go through these things because this is how

God makes us more like himself, his Son, Jesus Christ.

This is how we become conformed more to the image and likeness

of Jesus. And the Bible is full of

teaching on adversity. I don't know how some of these

teachers on TV talk about, you know, the best life.

Now, the best life is when you're with the Lord in heaven

for all, all eternity, right? That's the that's what we're

looking for. But in this world, we do have

many joys and we and experience many joys and blessings.

But we also have to understand that this is part of the

identity of being Christians. It tells us in the book of

Hebrews, it refers to some of the people that went through

difficult times. It says some of these people

that were used by the Lord in past times.

They stopped the mouths of lions in Hebrews Chapter 11.

Hebrews 11 · chapter mention

They quenched the violence of fire.

They escaped the edge of the sword out of weakness, were made

strong, became valiant in battle, turned to flight.

The armies of the aliens women received their dead, raised to

life again. Others were tortured, not

accepting deliverance that they might obtain a better

resurrection. Still others had trials of

mockings and scourgings, yes, and of chains and imprisonment.

They were stoned, they were son, and two were tempted, were slain

with the sword. They wandered about, and

sheepskins and goatskins, being destitute, afflicted, tormented,

of whom the world was not worthy, they wandered in deserts

and mountains and dens and caves of the earth.

And all these, having obtained a good testimony through faith,

did not receive the promise. God having provided something

better for us, that they should not be made perfect.

Apart from us, all these people went through all these difficult

trials and heartache and torture and adversity and pain, and they

didn't see what we have experience in regard to the

death, burial and resurrection of Christ.

They were looking forward to that.

Now we look back and we remember what Christ did and how he

suffered for us. And so when we go through

suffering, Jesus makes us partners together with him

because if we're going to take part in the resurrection, it

says we're also going to have to endure the sufferings that

Christ went through personally. We identify with these things

ourselves. And it's a wonderful thing when

you can see it from a biblical perspective that whatever you

may be going through, you're not alone.

People in countless years of history before you and I have

gone through things that have been even more difficult and

more challenging to deal with. And Paul also says in verse 10

of 2nd Corinthians 12, therefore, I take pleasure in

infirmities and reproaches and needs and persecutions and

distress for Christ's sake. For when I am weak, then I am

strong. Amen.

So whenever we get beaten down and we feel like we can't go on

and we're overwhelmed and just, you know, like over everything

that's happening in life, we just don't want to have to deal

with it or whatever the Holy Spirit comes upon us, encourages

us. And all of a sudden we realize

that we're strongest when we're weakest, when we're weak in

ourselves, we're strong in the Lord.

And that's the upside of the challenges that we go through

now since we're hitting on difficulties regarding these

kind of situations in life. I wanted to read something here

in regards to persecution. This is important to know

because right now in our country, we still have the

ability to do what we're doing today.

No one's going to break in here and tell us we can't worship.

No one's going to handcuff me and say, well, you, we're taking

you to jail and you're never going to be able to talk about

this stuff again. That's happening in places in

the world right now. It's hard for us to understand

that, but it's true. One in eight Christians

worldwide live in countries where they may face persecution.

So one in eight people are facing unbelievable situations.

Open Doors and international NGO advocating on behalf of

persecuted Christians released their annual World Watch List.

The World Watch List assesses 50 countries where Christians face

the most severe types of persecution.

The newly published data reveals that during the reporting

period, and this is from October and 2019 through September a

couple years later, more than 340 million Christians were

living in countries and where they might suffer high levels of

persecution and discrimination because of their faith.

Among this #309,000,000 Christians were living in

countries where they would experience unbelievable

situations that one in eight worldwide, one in six in Africa,

two out of five in Asia, and one in 12 in Latin America.

It researched this time that Christians. 4761 Christians were

killed for their faith. 4488 churches or Christian buildings

were attacked. 4277 Christians were unjustly arrested, detained

or in prison. 17110 Christians were abducted for faith related

reasons. On average every day 13

Christians are killed for their faith. 12 churches or Christian

buildings were attacked. 12 Christians are unjustly

arrested, detained, or in prison and five Christians are abducted

for faith related reason. It's hard to comprehend that

this is occurring right now throughout the world.

Extreme levels of persecution. Some of these places are so

radically insane that you would never consider wanting to be a

missionary in North Korea ranks #1 as a world's worst persecutor

of Christians. For the 20th consecutive year,

being a Christian in North Korea is a death sentence.

If not killed, Christians are taken to labor camps as

political criminals. Kim Jong Un is reported to have

expanded the system of prison camps in which an estimated 50

to 70,000 Christians are currently in prison.

Nigeria also entered the top 10 for the first time, reaching a

maximum violence score. Nigerian Christians face violent

attacks from Islamic extremist groups including Boko Haram,

Falami Muslim militia, Dairish affiliate, especially in

northern Nigeria. In the Middle Belt and Nigeria,

men and boys are particularly vulnerable to being killed.

The women and children they leave behind are often displaced

to informal camps, face sexual violence, or even at risk of

abduction and forced marriage. China has entered the top 20 for

the first time in a decade due to ongoing and increasing

surveillance and censorship of Christians and other religious

minorities in China. The policy of Since sizing the

church has been implemented nationwide as a Communist Party

limits whatever it perceives as a threat to its role in

ideology. Thousands of churches have been

damaged or closed. In some parts of China, children

under the age of 18 aren't allowed to attend church, part

of the country's effort to stunt future growth.

While China is ranked 17th as a place where Christians are

subjected to high level persecution, the situation of

all religious groups China is dire and has been deteriorating

over recent years. Considering the current trends

of persecution in China, it's expected that China will be

topping the list soon with North Korea as a worse place to live

as a Christian. I mean, there's an agenda that

the world has to basically eliminate Christianity from the

face of the earth. And so that's why it's even more

important for now for churches like ours to be simply teaching

the Bible simply verse by verse, day by day, week by week, month

by month, year by year. Having young people over there

getting discipled in the truth of the gospel so that their

worldview is a biblical worldview.

And they can stand against all this agenda of all this

godlessness that's occurring at the top levels of our government

today. We have to pray like we've never

prayed before, intercede, get before the Lord.

The Lord knows what's happening, but He's only going to move in

the degree that we're all committed together as a group of

people in our nation to pray for our country and that we can be 1

nation under God again. For right now, we are one nation

under secular humanism and moral relativism.

You and I are one nation under God.

We're the remnant, we're the church, we're the believers.

But the ongoing issues of our ideology, of our governmental

system right now and denouncing our Constitution, among many

other things, freedom of religion, freedom of rights,

culture wars, everything is occurring right now to divide

people and to cause more and more chaos in our world.

We need to just simply keep teaching the truth.

And Jesus told us that these things would occur in the last

days. And so the last days could be

another 1000 years. I don't know.

They felt like Paul and those guys, they all felt that they

were in the last days in the book of the Acts.

But obviously it's been 2000 years.

So the Lord's on the scene, He's on the way.

He's with us. He'll never leave us or forsake

us. But that's why it's important to

study the Bible so that when you were going through trials and

you're going through difficulties and things, you'd

understand. You go back to the Scriptures

and you're reminded God's got it all under control, doesn't He?

Amen. He's on the throne.

No matter what we read, no matter what we see, no matter

what we hear, His will is going to be completely, 100%

ultimately accomplished. And that's what gives us the

encouragement to keep on keeping on.

So turning your Bibles to Acts 21, this is the subtitle.

My Bible says warnings on the journey to Jerusalem.

So Paul has been persecuted at times.

He's been put in jail for a day or two.

But it's going to get a lot worse for him in these remaining

chapters of Acts. Now it came to pass that when he

had departed from them he set sail, running a straight course

we came to cost. The following day it arose, and

from there to Partara, and finding a ship sailing over to

Phoenicia, we went aboard and set sail.

And when we had sighted Cyprus, we passed it on the left, sailed

to Syria and landed a tire, for there the ship was to unload her

cargo. And finding disciples, we stayed

there seven days. So the wonderful thing is that

they found believers and they want to have some fellowship

now. So let's pray.

Father God, we are here today as a body of Christ believers to

encourage one another to build each other up.

That's the very presence of every life here today represents

people who are following you and trusting in you and living for

you, Lord, and your Kingdom. And from your vantage point, we

are the majority because heaven and earth will pass away, that

all those who do the will of God and the truth of the Word of God

will abide forever. You promise us these things,

Lord. So as we study today, we humble

our hearts before you that we might be able to be taught by

your Holy Spirit. Because you resist the proud,

You give grace to the humble. In Your name, Lord Jesus, I

humble myself along with my brothers and sisters that we

would be open to believe and no need to believe, but live out

the things we learned today and we pray all these things in

Jesus name, Amen. So he's there fellowshipping

with people. Some of these people he never

met before. I'm sure most of them he didn't.

He knew maybe something about them.

They were a result of the persecution that occurred in the

early part of the church and Acts, where churches spread out

and those regions and so many, many people became followers of

Christ. Paul wasn't responsible for

every church plan or every move that had occurred at that part

of the world at that time. And so they began to speak to

Paul. They told Paul through the

Spirit not to go up to Jerusalem.

The Holy Spirit's laying it upon their hearts to tell Paul that

it isn't a good idea to go to Jerusalem.

OK, He's hearing it right from them.

And when he had come to the end of those days, we departed, and

we went on our way, and they all accompanied us with wives and

children till we were out of the city, and we knelt down on the

shore and prayed. And when he had taken our leave

of one another, we boarded the ship and they returned home.

And what a beautiful setting. I'm an ocean guy.

And boy, I'll tell you, nothing better than praying on the

beach, right? And he's there with his brothers

and sisters and saying goodbye. And the kids are there and the

families are there and they're just worshiping the Lord and

they're praying for Godspeed and blessing upon the apostle Paul.

So you can mark in your notes, that's one warning right there

that he shouldn't go to Jerusalem.

Verse 7. And when he had finished our

voyage from Tyre, we came to put Talamas and greeted the brethren

and stayed with them one day. On the next day we who were

Paul's companions departed and came to Caesarea and entered the

House of Philip the Evangelist who was one of the seven and

stayed with him. You remember Philip had

witnessed to the Ethiopian eunuch.

He was one of the seven that was picked to help serve tables in

the church. The church was growing so much

they needed physical help to take care of the widows and some

of the other issues in the church.

But these are spirit filled men, gifted men with callings and

teaching abilities and preaching and evangelistic opportunities.

Philip was one of these seven and he went down and he went and

preached to the Ethiopian eunuch.

That guy ended up getting saved after he heard Philip explain

what Isaiah 53 meant. And eventually he baptized this

man in the water, complete immersion, baptized him in the

river there, and he came up. And then Philip was translated

and This is why he was able to go from 1:00 point in time and

space, and he was taken to another place approximately 3035

miles away. 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.

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Thank you for tuning in and spending this time in God's

Word. Be sure to join us again for

Living Waters of Grace.