Living Waters of Grace 11.27.25

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.

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

Acts 20 · chapter mention

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.

Acts 20 · chapter mention

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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