Living Waters of Grace 11.04.25

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.

There is a thing called apostasy in the Bible where people fall

away from the faith and only God knows the heart.

But if you're a believer, you might stumble, you might drift a

little bit, but you can't fall away.

You're going to come back again because the Holy Spirit's going

to convict you and draw you back again.

Have you ever drifted from the Lord and you couldn't stay away

from Him too long? He started getting miserable and

depressed and discouraged. Well, that's the work of God's

Spirit, reminding you who you belong to.

When you really love someone, it's tough to keep your distance

for too long, isn't it? Even when there's a bit of

confusion, your heart just can't help but reach out to set things

straight with them. Have you ever thought about how

the vibe between you and God is pretty similar?

In today's message, Pastor Clark shares how your soul longs to

reconnect with your Creator. Even when you drift away from

Jesus, your soul pulls you back toward Him like a magnet.

God's love will always bring you back to Him.

Now here's Pastor Clark in Acts chapter 15 as he begins his

Acts 15 · chapter mention

message, the Gospel of Grace. We are in Acts chapter 15, and

Acts 15 · chapter mention

the title of the message is The Gospel of Grace.

We'll be looking at verses one through 34, and I always write a

few notes in regard to what the message is about before I preach

it so we can put it out there for those who are checking us

out on Facebook and YouTube. But I came up with this little

overview of what we're going to look at.

In the early church, disputes arose regarding the essential

beliefs and basis of saving faith.

There was the ancient tradition that Jewish believers held onto

circumcision according to the custom of Moses.

These additional requirements that the Pharisees placed upon

the Gentiles for salvation actually were considered heresy

or false teaching. Anything that is taught as

requirements for saving faith that is not through grace alone,

by faith alone and Christ alone is an assault against the

finished work of Christ upon the cross of Calvary.

Not only was this settled by the early church leaders in

Jerusalem, but is also clearly delineated through the teaching

of Christ and His Apostles and is also clearly taught

throughout the New Testament Scriptures.

True believers were sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise, who

is the guarantee of our inheritance until the redemption

of the purchase, possession to the praise of His glory.

This is the gospel of grace. And so in the early church, they

were confronted with this doctrine from the Old Testament

that was a sign of the covenant between the children of Abraham

and the Jewish nation to follow in God's ways.

Circumcision was never set up as a condition for salvation.

It was an outward sign of something that was hopefully

happening within the hearts of the Jewish believers at the

time. But just like any other ritual,

and circumcision truly became a ritual, it didn't have much

effect on people who had. It didn't do anything to give

them new birth or or change their heart.

Same thing with water baptism. Some people think that water

baptism has power to save. Water baptism is a outward sign

of God's grace. Inwardly, baptism doesn't save

us. If baptism was a condition for

salvation, then the thief on the cross to the right of Jesus

couldn't have been saved because he died without baptism, if you

remember. So baptism is a sign of

obedience, and it's part of what happens when we first become

believers. We're to be baptized in the

historic church. This was evidence that you were

truly in the church when you put your faith in Jesus Christ, and

then you followed the Lord and believers.

Baptism. You're identifying with his

death, his burial, his resurrection.

So if you haven't been baptized, I got good news.

You can still be baptized, but baptism isn't going to save you.

Baptism will though, bless you because it's a sign of your

desire to be obedient to what the Scriptures teach regarding

the gospel. So I want to look at a couple of

verses, the Salaia Foundation before we get into this 15th

chapter. And if you look at Acts chapter

Acts 2 · chapter mention

2, and we covered this quite a while ago, Acts chapter 2,

Acts 2:36–39

verses 36 through 39, this is Peter speaking on the day of

Pentecost and how quickly people forget the power and the move of

the Holy Spirit on that day of Pentecost.

Pentecost was a miraculous outpouring of God's Spirit upon

the believers and those who would believe in the early days

of the inception of the New Testament church.

And Peter is speaking to predominantly people who are

coming into town to celebrate the feast of Pentecost and he's

giving this message. And he says in verse 36,

Therefore let all the House of Israel, of course comprise of

many, many Jewish people at the time, Know it surely that God

has made this Jesus whom you crucified, both Lord and Christ.

Now when they heard this, they were cut to the heart.

In other words, they were convicted by the Holy Spirit.

And they said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, men and

brethren, what shall we do? And Peter said to them, you must

be circumcised, right? No, it's not in there.

But the Judaizers added that to it.

But this is what Peter said, Repent and let everyone of you

be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ for the remission of

sins, and you shall receive the gift of the Holy Spirit for the

promises to you and to your children and to all who are far

off, as many as the Lord God will call.

So it was faith in Jesus Christ, repentance from our sin, and

then believing in the work of Jesus Christ and the cross for

the forgiveness and the cleansing of our sin through his

shed blood. What happens with us as human

beings. And I had a conversation with

someone about this yesterday. I did a wedding yesterday and

the gentleman is from a church called Free Will Baptist Church

in California somewhere. And he wasn't aware of the fact

that the church taught that believers could lose their

salvation. And so he was quite disturbed

about that. He said, I don't think I can

stay in that church because they're they're teaching us that

we can't know that we're saved. In other words, we don't have an

assurance of our salvation. There's a a possibility of us

losing our salvation. And it tells us in the book of

Ephesians, and maybe some of you are here today, think you can

lose your salvation. If we could lose our salvation,

then what's that say about what Christ has done for us when he

said it is finished? We can't add anything to what it

is that Christ has done. We think sometimes the

performance of our diligence as Christians and our commitment to

the teachings of Scripture. The more committed we are, then

the more impressed God is with us.

God is blessed when we obey the Scriptures and follow Him.

But God knows that we still fail him.

We still sin. All of us still sin.

We're born again once we put our faith and trust in Jesus Christ.

Our sins are forgiven. But still we still sin.

And that's why it tells us whenever the Holy Spirit

convicts US of sin or to ask Him for forgiveness, not for

salvation, but for our relationship with Him, to stay

close to him, to not hurt him, to not wound him, to not quench

His spirit or grieve His spirit. And so we tell the Lord, Lord,

forgive me for this. You've convicted me of this

attitude, this behavior, this failing, this wrong attitude,

this wrong thought. And God Forgives us, He cleanses

us, His blood cleanses us. It tells us if we confess our

sins, this is to believers in the book of first John, chapter

one, verse 9. If we confess our sins, he is

faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from

all unrighteousness. So we need to continually be

cleansed. I, I don't know how many of you

take a shower or a bath every day, so I assume most of you

did. But if you didn't, we would

smell it, right? Well, you just know you got to

clean your body. You got to wash your your

armpits, whatever you do. You know, that's a good thing to

do to, to stay pleasant, to be around other people.

But we also need to be cleansed from sin.

And sin is a stench to God and it's sin effects one another as

brothers and sisters in Christ. If we're living lives as

believers and we're not living in a close intimate relationship

with the Lord, repenting of sin moment by moment as it comes up

in our lives and we're going to begin to become not really great

people to be around. We'll begin to be judgmental and

critical of everybody else's sin, but we won't ever think

about our own issues, our own problems.

And so it tells us in Ephesians first a couple chapters.

It gets into the subject of the security of the believer, and it

tells us that and whom we also trusted, This is the Lord.

After we received the word of truth, we were sealed with the

Holy Spirit of promise, and it's this permanent mark.

It's like a brand that can't be taken off, it can't be erased,

it can't be eradicated. We're sealed with the Holy

Spirit of promise, which is a guarantee of our inheritance

until the day of redemption. It's the guarantee that we have

eternal life and we can never lose it.

Now, there is a thing called apostasy in the Bible, where

people fall away from the faith and only God knows the heart.

But if you're a believer, you might stumble, you might drift a

little bit, but you can't fall away.

You're going to come back again because the Holy Spirit's going

to convict you and draw you back again.

Have you ever drifted from the Lord and you couldn't stay away

from him too long? He started getting miserable and

depressed and discouraged. Well, that's the work of God's

Spirit, reminding you who you belong to.

I love what it tells us in the book of Jude unto him who is

able to keep you from falling and to present you faultless

before His glory with exceeding joy.

And so He's the one that keeps us, right?

We don't keep ourselves. The Holy Spirit keeps us, and

I'm so grateful for that. If it was up to us, none of us

could be saved, could we? And so this is a fight that has

occurred since the beginning of time and the garden, where the

challenge of Lucifer to Adam and Eve was.

Hath not God said, twisting the scriptures to teach something

that isn't true. And so we then see Paul saying

the same thing that Peter's saying regarding salvation.

Then he called for a light, verse 29 of 16, ran in and fell

down trembling before Paul and Silas, this is the Philippian

jailer. And he brought them out and

said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved?

And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and you will

be saved, you and your household.

Then they spoke the word of the Lord to him and to all who were

in the house. And he took them that same hour

of the night and washed their stripes.

And immediately he and all his family were baptized.

And now when he had brought them into the house, he said food

before them. And he rejoiced, having believed

in God with all his household. Romans chapter 10 verse 8

Romans 10:8–13

through 13. The word is near to and in your

mouth and in your heart. That is the Word of Faith which

we preach, that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus,

and believe in your heart that God hath raised him from the

dead, you will be saved. For with the heart one believes

unto righteousness, and with the mouth confession is made unto

salvation. For the scripture says whoever

believes on him will not be put to shame.

For there is no distinction between Jew and Greek.

For the same Lord over all is rich to all who call upon him.

For whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.

Isn't that awesome? Whoever calls upon you can be

here today and maybe not even be a believer yet.

And the Holy Spirit's convicting you, and you just right now call

upon the name of the Lord. Lord, forgive me, save me for my

sin, and you will be immediately transferred from the Kingdom of

darkness into the Kingdom of His dear Son, the Lord Jesus.

That's how simple it is, so simple.

But unfortunately the enemy wants to make it complicated.

And so in chapter 15, verse 1, certain men came down from Judea

and taught the brethren. These are the Judaizers and we

read about them in the pastoral Epistles, especially in

Galatians. Unless you are circumcised

according to the custom of Moses, you cannot be saved.

So they're telling Gentiles that didn't grow up Jewish that they

needed to be circumcised in order to be saved.

These people are new believers and they're probably like shook

up thinking like, well, what do I do?

I'm not Jewish and, and I don't know about you being a grown

man, but if someone told me I had to be circumcised and I

wasn't circumcised yet, I wouldn't be too interested in

that, would you guys? Aren't you glad you don't have

to be circumcised? Therefore, when Paul and

Barnabas had no small dissension and dispute with them, they

determined that Paul and Barnabas and certain others of

them should go up to Jerusalem to the apostles and elders about

this question. So there's this problem in the

church. Some people are saying, well,

what do we do? What's the truth?

There's a problem here. So Peter and Barnabas are

getting them calmed down, reinforcing the truth of the

gospel, and they're going to go up to Jerusalem and present this

issue, this problem that's arisen in the New Testament

church at the time of this idea of circumcision being part of

what saves someone from their sin.

Now, at this time there was this growth of the New Testament

church. Church is being planted

everywhere. Headquarters was sort of

Jerusalem, but there really was never any headquarters in the

church on earth. The headquarters of the church

is in heaven, and that's God the Father, God the Son, God the

Holy Spirit. They are the ones that lead and

run the church. We don't need a hierarchy to

keep things under control. We don't need a a place in Rome

to tell us what's right or what's wrong.

We don't need a place in Costa Mesa where Calvary Chapel

started. It tells us what's right or

wrong. We know this word tells us

what's right and wrong right. And so we are accountable to

what the Bible teaches. And soon as something is being

taught contrary to the Bible, then it all goes S very, very

quickly. James was the half brother of

Jesus and he was sort of the main guy in the church in

Jerusalem, the first among equals if you may.

And so he would sort of preside over this council that they were

going to have regarding this issue of circumcision.

This is a big deal because it's going to wreck the church if it

isn't straightened out. Just like if a heresy came in

here and someone started teaching something that wasn't

biblical, it would wreck the church and scatter the sheep.

So being sent on their way by the church, they were sent up by

this church in Antioch. They pass through Phoenicia and

Samaria describing the conversion of the Gentiles and

how they cause great joy to all the brethren.

So it was so wonderful how all these people were getting saved

miraculously in these church plants that the Paul and

Barnabas were establishing. It was like a revival.

It was just amazing how this, the preaching of the simple

gospel, was convicting people and bringing them to faith in

Jesus Christ. There was no rituals.

There was no ceremonies. There was no hierarchy of people

telling them, yeah, you put your faith in Christ, but then you

got to do these three things or four things in order to make

sure you're really saved. That wasn't happening.

Verse 4. And when they had come to

Jerusalem, they were received by the church and the apostles and

the elders, and they reported all the things that God had done

with them. But some of the sect of the

Pharisees, and this is the false cult of the Pharisees, the

Judaizers who believe rose up saying it is necessary to

circumcise them and to command them to keep the law of Moses.

Paul tells us in Galatians and in this book of Galatians was

written to communicate these issues and problems that we're

continuing in the early stages of the church.

And he's very emphatic and what he says here in Galatians

chapter one, verse 6 through 9, this ties right into this.

Paul says, I marvel that you were turning away so soon from

him who called you in the grace of Christ to a different gospel,

which is not another. But there are some who trouble

you and want to pervert the gospel of Christ.

But even if we are an Angel from heaven, preach any other gospel

to you than what we have preached you.

Let him be accursed, as we have said before.

So now I say again, if anyone preaches any other gospel to you

than what you have received, let him be accursed.

That's pretty deep and pretty powerful, what he said there.

And so I run into people, you run into people.

Unfortunately, the body of Christ on the earth is so

fragmented between so many different denominations and so

many different opinions and so many different liturgies and

rituals and ways of doing things and way of not doing things.

But anytime a ritual supersedes the Gospel, it's a heresy.

Nothing wrong with the ritual. Some people use candles and

incense. Some people use drums and

guitars to worship God. There's nothing inherently wrong

in any of that. But if we lift any of the ritual

above the truth of the Word of God, we've become false

teachers. So you have different groups

that say you cannot be saved unless you confess your sins to

a priest maybe. Or you can't be saved unless you

speak in tongues. Or you can't be saved unless

you've received the second blessing and called the holiness

doctrine. And these people teach that you

have this experience, you'll never sin again.

I mean, it's craziness, you know?

And so you have all these people with these different agendas

and, and different ways of adding things to what the

Scriptures say. And so as a result, the

simplicity of the gospel is corrupted by the gospel being

Jesus plus something else. And the gospel is that Christ

died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was

buried, and that he rose again the third day according to the

Scriptures. Jesus said I am the way, I am

the truth, I'm the life. No man cometh to the Father but

through me. It's not through any church

system, it's not through any Sacramento rights, it's not

through any kind of works of righteousness, which we have

done, but it's according to His mercy.

He has saved us. And these are serious issues.

We might take it for granted because we are in a Bible church

and there's many churches still like this out there.

Thank God for that. Bible churches that teach the

Bible, not man's ideas of what the Bible says, are teaching

things that aren't in the Bible. I'm amazed at how many people

look at tradition and I don't care what the tradition could

be. It could be the tradition of

Catholicism or Eastern Orthodoxy or Reformation theology.

Soon as you make something more superior, a system to the truth

of the simplicity of the gospel, which Paul was worried about,

the thing that bothered in the most is that our minds would be

corrupted from the simplicity that is in Christ Jesus.

It is enough that Jesus died and that he died for me.

That's enough. But all these other things, they

make people religious, they make them proud, they make them

self-righteous. So this brother said to me, you

know, how could they tell me, you know, what's the basis of me

losing my salvation? What sin is it that I could lose

my salvation? David committed the worst of

sins, adultery and murder, and yet because he was a man after

God's own heart, the Spirit convicted him, and he repented

of his sin, and God still declared him even after his sin,

that he was a man after God's own heart.

Aren't you glad? Psalm 50 ones in the Bible

restore unto me the joy of my salvation.

Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a steadfast

spirit within me. A broken and a contrite heart

God will not despise. There's no sin once you become a

believer in Jesus Christ that would prevent you from entering

into the Kingdom of heaven. Now I don't recommend you sin

because you have this security in Christ.

If you love Christ, you don't want a sin.

If you love Christ, you'll send less.

If someone says they're a believer and they decide they no

longer want to follow Christ, you pray for them and pray that

the Holy Spirit will convict them.

God inscribes us in the palm of our hands.

He promises He will never leave us or forsake us.

He doesn't make us a son or a daughter and then disown us.

So these teachings are really very, very dangerous out there.

Thank you for listening to this edition of Living Waters of

Grace. Pastor Clark is teaching us

about the book of Acts in this series.

Acts is a powerful and unique part of Scripture, not just

because it records the spread of the gospel geographically from

Jerusalem to the ends of the earth, but also culturally.

Acts shows us how the message of Jesus moved beyond its Jewish

roots and began to reach the Gentile world.

What started with Peter leading a small group in the upper room

became a global movement, with Paul taking the gospel to

cities, synagogues, and marketplaces across the Roman

Empire. Acts captures this vital

transition and reminds us that the good news of Jesus is for

all people in every place. May we be inspired to carry that

same gospel boldly into our world today.

Living Waters of Grace comes to you from Calvary Chapel,

Westmoreland. If you're in the Greensburg, PA

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 also invite you to join us in person

this Sunday at 10:30 AM at 400 E Pittsburgh St.

Unit 6B. To stay up to date, visit

calvarychapelonline.com where you can find our teaching

archive, submit prayer requests, join our e-mail list, or give

online. If you're outside the area,

don't worry, you can still worship with us through the

Calvary Chapel Westmoreland YouTube channel.

Be sure to subscribe so you won't miss new content.

You're so thankful that you joined us today.

Be sure to tune into the next edition of Living Waters of

Grace.