Living Waters of Grace 10.07.25

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.

They weren't trained preachers or anything, but the word

preaching in the translation in the Greek means they were just

sharing what Jesus did for them. So if we could be more focused

on talking with people without an agenda, but just telling them

about what Jesus means to us and what He's done for us, it has

impact on people. They might not respond, but

they're thinking right. They're questioning in their

mind and it plants a seed for later on, possibly wanting to

know more and eventually opening their heart to receive Jesus as

the Lord and Savior. The early church in the book of

Acts is a great example of what a church should look like today.

The focus was on spreading the good news of Jesus's burial and

resurrection to everyone that was willing to hear it.

As Pastor Clark will teach you in today's message, that's how

lives are changed. That's how you can give someone

the hope of salvation and eternal life.

It starts with you having the courage to speak to others about

the faith you have. It's news that's meant to be

shared with everyone you can. Now here's Pastor Clark in the

book of Acts Chapter 8 with today's edition of Living Waters

Acts 8 · chapter mention

of Grace. We're in the book of the Acts,

Acts 8 · chapter mention

chapter 8, and it's the transition of the church from a

time of unity and peace to a time of persecution and

separation in a sense of being sent out into the rest of the

region. At the time when we study the

Bible, we're studying history, historical fact and details.

And how do we make this real to us today as we study these

things that were written thousands of years ago?

Each person mentioned in the Scriptures is a real person that

one day for us as believers, we'll meet these people in

heaven. We'll have a chance to talk with

them and to to hear their stories.

But in the meantime, we find out how they were wired, how they

lived in difficult times and much more difficult than the

times that we live in today. Whenever you study the Bible,

the Bible is written by God, by the Holy Spirit to normal

people. At that time.

They were given the ability to write these things down.

So it's the only book given to the human race that was actually

given to us by the one who created us, God.

So whenever you open your Bibles, you can be assured that

you're hearing God's heartbeat, you're learning his ways, you're

learning how to live for him and how to follow him and how to

obey him. And, and you also learn what it

means to be saved from the power of sin and how to overcome

temptation and how to be set free from so many things that

are destroying people's lives on a daily basis.

And so the Christians in the early church, when they first

became believers, the thing they wanted to do the most was to

tell other people about what Jesus had done for them.

It wasn't looking down on people or acting like they're better

than anybody else. It was people that had their

lives transformed and a very powerful way where their guilt

was taken away, the impulse to commit sin was diminished.

Their love for people, even enemies, was strong and

powerful, and they just were a whole different kind of breed of

people on the planet. And the more people that come to

know Jesus on this planet, the better this world can and will

become. The least amount of people that

know the truth of the Lord, the worse things become, the

tragedy, the trauma, the heartache, and it's all over the

earth. And when things like this happen

and we read about it and maybe we're not personally involved,

it affects us. We worry about our children, we

worry about our grandchildren, we worry about what happens in

the schools. It depresses us Friday just

thinking about like where are we as a society?

Where, where are we as families? Where are we as a world?

It appears that the things of God are meaningless to most of

the human race or people segment their lives and they say, well,

this is the time I serve God, but this is the time I serve

myself. And there's so much emphasis on

self and self focus and self-interest and self opinion.

And, and it completely goes contrary to the gospel of Jesus

Christ, where the gospel causes us to be less self-centered and

more selfless so that we might care about others who are in

tragedy and going through difficult times and struggles.

And when you look around in life, I don't know about you,

but I run into people every day that need Jesus.

And I got to figure out a way that I can be, maybe be able to

tell them about him without being pushy or without being,

you know, in a situation where I'm, I'm making them feel

uncomfortable or something. I want it to be natural and I

want it to be real. And, and one of the big things

we learned at the conference there was how do we, how do we

reach people in our everyday life?

And the guy that spoke was not even a pastor.

He was one of the guest speakers.

And he's a U PS: driver. He drives the big rigs.

And the Lord put it on his heart years ago to get in a ministry

to give Bibles out to people with a track called a comfort

track. And a comfort track has a list

of issues that people would want to be finding answers for,

whether it's lust or anger or hatred or unforgiveness or

bitterness or, you know, temptation or heartache or

tragedy or whatever. And you, you, you look at the

the title and then you can look up the verse in the Bible,

right. So this man has spent his whole

life basically figuring out how we can get Bibles into the hands

of people. He works, he has a backpack.

When he delivers his shipments to wherever he's going, he gives

the people a Bible as a gift. And most people when they're

given a gift, they take it right.

Usually you don't say, well, I don't want that.

I don't need it. These are really nice Bibles and

very attractive. And so he prays and asks the

Holy Spirit to fill him, to give him the ability to share the

good news and the faith. And so that impacted me

personally there as a pastor, because I'm trying to figure out

ways that we can get the word of God out of the building into the

streets, into the city, into the community, into the schools, the

colleges, wherever. And I thought, man, you know, we

got several 100 people here when everybody shows up, that we have

the ability to go out into places that people maybe aren't

going to come in here initially. And so how can we do that?

So we got 100 Bibles on order. When they come, they'll be

stacked on the altar here. So at the end of the church

service, when Gina gives you opportunity to pray, if you want

to pray, you can just walk up and grab a Bible with a comfort

track and pray who you might want to give that Bible away to.

You know, don't feel under pressure to say, Lord, put some

into my life this week that I can give this gift of this Bible

to. And this is how people come to

know the Lord. I don't know about how you came

to faith in Christ, but I came to faith in Christ by someone

giving me a Bible and saying, Hey, I'm getting some answers

from this. Maybe you will too.

And so as I began in the Gospel, in the New Testament, Matthew,

and worked my way through John, by the time I got through John,

I was a believer in Jesus Christ through the reading of

Scriptures. The Bible says faith comes by

hearing and hearing by the word of God.

So I text this guy that spoke and he called me.

I think it was Thursday morning and we talked about, you know,

what he does and how he does it. And this guy, man like the Lord

bless his ministry. I mean they showed pictures of,

of skids with Bibles on. He's gone through I think

170,000 Bibles last year. He never asked anybody for any

support for the Bibles. The Lord provided over $200,000

for the ministry. And when they were doing the

financials at the end of the year, they found that to the

penny. Whatever came in went out for

the outreach of the ministry of the Bibles.

Only God can do stuff like that, right?

So he encouraged me and and told me, you know, what was up and

how to do it. And so be praying about the

Bible outreach ministry and how each of us can be involved in

that one. One story I want to tell before

we get into the scriptures. He was at a rest stop.

He went into the bathroom and he came out.

There was a young girl that came out of the restroom and you

could tell she was parting. She was, you know, out of it

basically and dressed, you know, inappropriately pretty wild.

And and he just, the Lord gave him a word and the Holy Spirit

does this sometime and he put it on this guy's heart that this is

that girl's birthday. So he said, happy birthday to

you. And she goes, I don't know who

you are. How did you know it's my

birthday? So the Lord told me.

And then she's like, you know, OK, what's up here?

And then he said, well, I want to give you a gift for your

birthday. And so he gave her a Bible.

And when she got the Bible, she started breaking down and crying

uncontrollably. She said, my dad's a pastor,

he's been praying for me that I would get my life right with

God. And she just wept.

Her mascara, he said was all over his shirt.

You know, it's just a real emotional thing there.

But so cool what the Lord can do, right?

So please be praying for our church and for our lives as

Christians and how we might be more effective in reaching

people with the gospel. You don't have to get into a

long conversation. All the answers are in the

Bible. You just say, hey, I got a lot

of answers in life about this and and you pray that the Lord

will use it and we'll give them a way of connecting with us if

they have questions or they want to know more about the Lord.

But that was one of the big takeaways at the conference

there. And so pray for all the pastors

who are exposed to those kind of things at conferences like that,

that we just don't come home and do nothing but that we listen to

what it is that the Lord wants us to do and and move ahead,

right, move forward and getting the gospel out.

That's the purpose of the church.

When we read in Acts here today, we we begin to see the

challenges of of being Christians and in environments

and cultures that are unchristian.

There's movements in our country to eliminate the gospel and to

prevent us from freely preaching the good news.

The world needs good news. I for the life of me, I have no

idea why people are against good news right, But that's the work

of the devil. So we we begin in chapter 8 with

verse one. It says now Saul was consenting

to his death. We just read last week about

Stephen, the first martyr in the New Testament church.

You can read Chapter 7 to get caught up if you've never heard

of that or don't know anything about it.

But Saul, who eventually became Paul the apostle, was a very,

very strong, powerful force against the church.

In the beginning. He was a Jewish person.

He looked at Christianity as a cult.

He didn't like Christians. He didn't want them to be

spreading the gospel in the communities.

And so he's focused on bringing persecution and says at that

time a great persecution arose against the church, which was at

Jerusalem. So the church started in

Jerusalem. Pressure comes down.

Now initially when the gospel happened, several 1000 people

get saved. A lot of people in Jerusalem

still not saved. So it really didn't mess up the

culture too much at the time from the unbelievers point of

view. But then more and more people

are being attracted to Christ, More and more and more people

are being invited to hear about Jesus.

And when they hear about him, they begin to believe in him and

their lives begin to change and they begin to tell other people.

And so this gospel is spreading in Jerusalem.

So Saul sees this happening. He wants to shut it down, just

like in China. They don't want anybody

spreading the gospel. And if you get caught spreading

the gospel, you get thrown in jail, arrested, and many times

you're in there for the rest of your life if you're not martyred

or killed for spreading the gospel.

So it says this great persecution came and, and, and

it started in Jerusalem. They were all scattered

throughout the regions of Judea and Samaria except the apostles.

See, the apostles are still in camp in the center of influence

at the beginning of the church age in Jerusalem.

But what's happening is the believers are being pushed out

into other areas surrounding Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria.

And Jesus said at in Acts 18, whenever the Holy Spirit was

poured out upon the earth after his, as he's after his

ascension, he said, you shall receive power when the Holy

Spirit comes upon you and you shall be witnesses of me in

Jerusalem, which is where they're at now, Then Judea, then

Samaria and then the other most parts of the earth.

So the whole focus of God isn't like the gospel is just like

right now here in Greensburg. I mean, we, we support

missionaries to take the gospel and other parts of the world,

which is the Great Commission to go into all the world, preach

the gospel to every living creature, right.

And then when they believe, baptizing them in the name of

the Father, Son and Holy Spirit, teaching them to observe all

things whatsoever I've commanded you and lo, I'm with you always,

even to the end of the age. We're going to have a baptism at

our house. We have a swimming pool.

So no one, if you haven't been baptized yet, after you become a

believer, please let us know. Let Pastor Lewis know the other

guys and we will get you baptized in 85° weather, OK, 85°

temperature, water. It's not tough to take.

But anyway, that's the focus of the gospel.

So Paul wants to shut this down and he he was interested in

seeing people taken out by their preaching of the gospel.

It says devout men carried Stephen to his burial.

So Stephen was stoned for preaching the gospel.

Jewish people who are believers or had respect for Stephen came

and got his body and says they made great lamentation over him.

In other words, lamentation was they were crying, they were

upset, they were burdened because of the horrible thing

that they had witnessed. To see this man bloodied just

because he was sharing a message of love, just sharing a message

of love, the good news of of Jesus and dying on the cross for

our sins. As for Saul, this is before he

became a believer. He made havoc of the church,

entering every house and dragging off men and women,

committing them to prison. So you can visualize this.

Say we're here today and it's Jerusalem and we're meeting and

I'm just up here sharing the Word, sharing the gospel.

Next thing you know, people are coming in, grabbing me, taking

me out, beating me, scaring you. Everybody's fleeing, worried,

running. And this is what this guy did.

He made havoc. He was a real problem at this

time and he put the people into prison and we'll read about him

later on as we get through Acts and how God miraculously saved

him. You might know someone who's

really wicked, someone who is evil, someone who is demonic,

someone who is this really a terrible person.

And you might think in your mind, there's no way the Gospels

for them, there's no way they'll ever believe.

Don't ever think that if God can save Paul, he can save anybody.

If God can save you and me, he can save anybody, right?

So that's the power of the Holy Spirit.

So anyway, we continue. It says in verse 4, therefore

those who were scattered went everywhere preaching the Word.

So these people were just normal people like us.

They weren't trained preachers or anything, but the word

preaching in the translation in the Greek means they were just

sharing what Jesus did for them. So if we could be more focused

on talking with people without an agenda, but just telling them

about what Jesus means to us and what He's done for us, it has

impact on people. They might not respond, but

they're thinking right. They're questioning in their

mind, and it plants a seed for later on, possibly wanting to

know more and eventually opening their heart to receive Jesus as

their Lord and Savior. So they're spreading around.

Then this guy, Phillip, he's another one of the men who were

chosen to take care of the widows and the orphans we

studied earlier. Stephen was one of those guys.

And Phillip, he's going down to the city of Samaria and

preaching Christ to them. Now Samaria was a place of half

breeds. If you understand, 1/2 breed

someone maybe who has this ethnic background.

They marry someone of another ethnic background.

They're not pure bred Jewish people, right?

But it doesn't matter because God came for the whole world.

He's not looking at these things the way we do as people.

But they were disrespected by the Hebrew Jews and they were

intermarrying during the Assyrian captivity.

When they were taken up into the north, they met Pagan Gentiles

and and some of these people got married.

And so they had these families that were mixed in the sense of

religious background. So he goes into Samaria and he

preaches Christ to them and the multitudes with 1 accord.

He did the things spoken by Philip.

So in other words, there's a lot of people.

He's not in a building like this.

He's on the streets. There's a big crowd collecting

every time these guys would go around and preach the word and

all these people are listening to what he's saying and they're

believing what it is he's saying.

And they hear and they see miracles, which he did for

unclean spirits. Crying with a loud voice came

out of many who were possessed, and many who were paralyzed and

lame were healed. And there was great joy in the

city. So whenever God does miracles

and whenever he changes a life or he, he takes someone out of

the burden of sin and gives them a brand new start, a brand new

heart. I mean, that's a joyous

experience. And this is what was happening

as a result of the word being preached that there would be joy

in the hearts of the people and there was great joy in that

city. And then in verse 9, it says

that there was a certain man called Simon who previously

practiced sorcery. In other words, he was in the

occult, witchcraft, all kind of weird New Age kind of stuff even

before we even knew what New Age stuff was.

It existed way back then and astonished the people of

Samaria. In other words, he he did

counterfeit miracles, claiming that he was summoned great, to

whom they all gave heed. In other words, all these people

at the time thought this guy was a man of God from the least to

the greatest saying This man is the great is the great power of

God. So when they looked at Simon the

sorcerer, because of his magic incantations, they sensed that

he had some kind of power, but it wasn't of God, it was really

of the devil. And so they heeded him because

he had astonished them with his sorceries for a long time.

So these magic arts that this guy did, he had had a big

business and people followed him around because of his ability to

do really amazing things. But when they believed Philip as

he preached the things concerning the Kingdom of God in

the name of Jesus Christ, both men and women were baptized.

So in other words, there's this revival going on, Philip's

preaching, people are believing, and they're.

Are getting baptized pretty much immediately after their

profession of faith in Jesus Christ.

He's preaching to them concerning the Kingdom of God

and the name of Jesus Christ. Both men and women were

baptized. So there's a difference between

bringing a message with Christ and without Christ.

The sorcerer brought incantations and magic arts

without any emphasis on Jesus Christ as people do today.

It's false teaching and false doctrine, and people can't get

saved by following magic arts or occult or witchcraft or casting

spells, all this stuff. It's a big deal out there in the

culture now. People get demonically oppressed

and possessed by messing around with this kind of stuff that's

out there. If you are involved in any of

these kind of things, New Age stuff, trying to have seances

through Ouija boards to talk to the dead, or you're trying to

get involved in all this dark side of what they call

mysticism, you're opening yourself up to demonic activity

and you're not even aware of it. And so these people are going to

get set free now because they're no longer going to follow Simon

the sorcerer. They're going to follow Jesus

Christ the Savior. And there's a big difference in

truth, right? There's only one truth, one way,

one life, and that's in Jesus Christ, not in this other kind

of crazy stuff that's out there. So Simon himself also believes

that this guy was convicted, obviously, and he appears to

have put his faith in Christ and he was baptized.

He continued with Philip. He he kept going around with

Philip and was amazed seeing the miracles and signs which were

done. He just blown away.

He had miracle power in himself, but nothing like what he was

seeing happening through Philip's life.

Because what was happening in Philip's life is being done by

Christ, by the Holy Spirit through this man's life.

Now when the apostles who were at Jerusalem heard that Samaria

had received the word of God, they sent Peter and John to

them. So the apostles go down to meet

these new believers who when they came down, prayed for them

that they might receive the Holy Spirit.

For as yet he had fallen upon none of them.

They had only been baptized in the name of the Lord Jesus.

Then they laid their hands on them and they received the Holy

Spirit. So when you look at Acts chapter

Acts 1 · chapter mention

1 to Acts chapter 10, it's a transitionary period.

Acts 10 · chapter mention

You can't pull a doctrine out of something you read in Acts.

It's mentioned one time and say that's how the church performs

the empowerment of the Holy Spirit.

In other words, you need a special person to lay hands on

you to pray for you to receive the Holy Spirit.

That's not taught in the rest of the Bible.

But in the beginning stages, because everything was new in

different people groups, you had the Jews that were baptized by

the Spirit at Pentecost. No one really had to lay hands

on them. The power of the Spirit came out

at Pentecost and filled the people in the upper room, 120

people at that time. And then when people believed,

they they were baptized by the Holy Spirit, by God the Holy

Spirit supernaturally and placed in the body of Christ in the

church as Christians. But as time moved on in the

initial stages, these different people groups were beginning to

hear the gospel. And so God chose to use this

method initially to bring the power of the Holy Spirit through

the hands of the apostles on top of the heads of the people who

had thus become believers. And so this is what happened.

And they laid hands on them and they received the Holy Spirit.

Now in the New Testament, though, we see that the Holy

Spirit, this idea of being filled with the Spirit of God,

happens all the time. We need to be constantly asking

God to fill us with the Spirit because we get empty.

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.

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716, Greensburg, PA 15601 also invite you to join us in person

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

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Grace.