Living Waters of Grace 10.03.25

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.

In times of persecution and church history, that's when the

church gets hot. That's when it separates the

chaff from the wheat, the true from the false.

China has been under persecution forever, it seems, and they're

one of the most on fire nations in the world in regard to

underground Christianity. And many of them are put in

prison forever once they're caught sharing the Gospel of

Christ. But it doesn't stop the people.

So whenever Stephen was martyred, they were dispersed,

and then the word began to go out into the rest of the world.

There are dozens of times in the Bible where God takes an evil

action and turns it around for good.

In today's message, Pastor Clark teaches us about the story of

Stephen, the first person to be martyred because of their faith

in Jesus. While Stephen didn't know what

was going to happen after his death, he knew that something

great awaited him as he met Jesus face to face in heaven.

And it was Stephen's death that helped ignite the gospel fire as

it spread from Jerusalem out into the entire world.

Now here's Pastor Clark in Acts Chapter 7 as he begins his

Acts 7 · chapter mention

message. Jewish history began with

Abraham. Let's get into the word.

We are in the book of the Acts, Acts Chapter 7 today.

Acts 7 · chapter mention

And I just wanted to give a little background on this guy by

the name of Steven who were studying about the day.

Steven, if you remember, was one of the men who were chosen to

help serve the widow's ministry and provide food for people in

the early church that needed help, sort of like the welfare

thing at the beginning of the church age.

He was a man who is full of the Holy Spirit.

He was chosen by the Lord to not any serve physically, but also

spiritually. I want to read starting with

verse 8 of chapter 6, leading into what we're going to talk

about the day in Chapter 7. And Steven, full of faith and

power, did great wonders and signs among the people.

Then there arose some from what is called the synagogue of the

Freedmen, Cyrenians, Alexandrians, and those from

Celestia and Asia disputing with Stephen, and they were not able

to resist the wisdom and the spirit by which he spoke.

So in other words, this man had an anointing on him.

He spoke by the power of the Spirit of God.

And even if they didn't like what he said or didn't agree

with what he said, they were all open to understanding that he

was giving them something that they had never really probably

thought too much about. And so then they secretly

induced men to say, We have heard him speak blasphemous

words against Moses and God, and they stirred up the people and

the elders and the scribes, and they came upon him, seized him,

and brought him to the council. They also set up false witnesses

who said, this man does not cease to speak blasphemous words

against this holy place in the law.

For we have heard him say that Jesus of Nazareth will destroy

this place and change the customs which Moses delivered to

us. And all who sat in the council

look steadfastly at him, saw his face as a face of an Angel.

So there's this lie going around that he's teaching things that

aren't true from the Bible. The Old Testament, at that time,

the New Testament wasn't written.

They were saying that Jesus was going to destroy the temple

versus understanding that Jesus was talking about himself being

the true temple of the living God and that his body would be

crucified, he would be buried, and he were raised again the

third day. That's what Jesus was meant when

he said this temple will be destroyed in three days.

It will be raised up again. Also, the law that Moses

brought, we're in a transition. When the church started and the

gospel came, it wasn't that the 10 commandments and the law

weren't significant anymore, but God never intended anybody to

try to be justified by obedience to the 10 commandments.

If you had to present yourself before God based upon perfectly

following the 10 commandments, and because you did that, you

would be accepted into heaven, none of us would be able to get

into heaven because all of us have broken the law, the 10

commandments. And so all these things are

manipulated by these people that were basically raised up to stir

up contention amidst the early church.

And so Stephen is accused of these various untruths.

Nonetheless, he continues and what it is God's called him to

do. Now this guy had a very short

term ministry. He will be, as we study this

chapter, the first martyr of the New Testament church.

He's blood was shed because of his faith in Jesus Christ.

Since that time, millions of people have been martyred all

across the planet. And to this day, people are

still being martyred for their faith and hassled because

they're just sharing the good news of the gospel.

Steven also was from a Greek culture, Greek background.

He wasn't the Hebrew of Hebrew, so to speak.

He was Jewish, but he was impacted by more the the Greek

culture than he was the Hebrew culture.

So he was sort of seen as maybe an outsider to those who led in

the synagogues and, and, you know, were responsible for

leading the nation of Israel and Judeo values.

We're also in a transition in the sense that we're going from

the emphasis of law to grace. Now, grace is in the old

covenant. Grace is in the Old Testament.

Again, God never said that anybody would be justified by

the works of the law, but the law was given so that man would

know that he is a Sinner. And so when we're presented with

the commandments and the and the law, it all it does is show us

that we're in need of a Savior, that we're sinners and that we

can't get to heaven by trying to obey the law, even though we

want to live and, and follow obviously the truths of the 10

commandments. They're all true and good and

they're righteous and they're holy, but none of us can

unfortunately do it perfectly right.

Only one could fulfill the law, and that was Jesus Christ.

And so Stephen also is the bridge between the ministry of

Peter and Paul because we'll find out as we study this and

later on, Paul is one of the people that are accusing Stephen

of blasphemy at this particular time.

Saul of Tarsus, who became eventually the apostle Paul.

Fascinating how Stephen was the God that the Lord God used to

begin to develop this new movement of Christianity.

When the persecution came in the early church, it was necessary

because they were hanging out in Jerusalem and they had done a

great job getting the gospel out in Jerusalem.

A matter of fact, they were accused of filling the city with

the word of Christ, the gospel of Christ.

And so now the Lord knows that it has to go into not any

Jerusalem, but Judea, Samaria, and the uttermost parts of the

earth in times of persecution and church history.

That's when the church gets hot. That's when it separates the

chaff from the wheat, the true from the false.

China has been under persecution forever, it seems, and they're

one of the most on fire nations in the world in regard to

underground Christianity. And many of them are put in

prison forever once they're caught sharing the gospel of

Christ. But it doesn't stop the people.

So whenever Stephen was martyred, they were dispersed

and then the word began to go out to the rest of the world.

So everything that happens in this sermon today that Stephen

is going to give us in Chapter 7 is all about the sovereignty of

God and how he has everything under control, even when maybe

we don't think things are under control.

And that everything that happens in history, in biblical history

was always for a purpose, never a mistake made.

No one missing the point. God had a directive, He put it

in place. It was us that refused to accept

the direction of God and we formed our own opinions and not

wanting to hear from the truth of the word of God as the Jewish

people didn't want to hear really the truth.

And so we're going to read about the history here.

It starts out and verse one, the high priest said to him, are

these things. So basically, Stephen, are you

stirring up all these problems? Are you blaspheming our temple

and blaspheming Moses? And he said this is an

opportunity now for him to speak up.

He said, brethren and fathers, listen, the God of glory

appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia

before he dwelt in Haran and said to him, get out of your

country and from your relatives and come to a land that I will

show you. What's interesting here is that

Abraham and I don't know how much you've thought about these

things. I was on vacation back in April

and I was, I was going to get breakfast and I heard a, a short

message by a messianic Christian guy, Jewish guy, And he was

explaining that in the beginning there wasn't this division of

Jew and Gentile. Basically, when God created the

world, we're all his creation and we all fell.

And Paul talks about later on in the in the New Testament that

there's neither Jew nor Gentile bond or free or male or female.

In other words, like it isn't like people groups or skin color

or ethnic origin or being born a man or a woman is insignificant.

These are all part of God's beautiful creation, right?

But he never holds up one higher than the other.

He never says that the man's more important than the woman or

this nation is better than that nation.

I mean, we're all fallen and we need a savior.

So he has this incredible plan. And so the guys talking, he says

Abraham was a Gentile and that that blew my mind because I

never like even conceived that that he was a Gentile.

He was chosen by God to start this nation, Israel, to begin to

develop his plan with the chosen people group, to have the law

and the prophets to bring the Messianic sea to fruition

through the bloodline of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob.

And so then he instituted the covenant between him and God.

Abraham, first he said, through you all the nations of the earth

will be blessed. And then God designed this

procedure called circumcision. And that's a whole another

subject for another time. But all these things were

ordained by God to put in a people group to send the message

of the gospel to humanity. Fascinating.

So Abraham, he's this guy, this normal guy.

And God favored him and, and chose him to be this one who

would be the first Jewish, this person basically to start this

nation called Israel didn't exist prior to this calling out

of God to Abraham, but it was in the plan of God before the

foundation of the earth. So whenever the we, we talk

about God's chosen people, it wasn't that they were better

than the Gentile, but God had to choose a people group to get us

to where we are today in regard to the gospel and Christianity.

And so he tells Abraham what to do.

Get out from your relatives. Come to the land and I'll show

you. So he comes out of the land of

the Chaldeans and dwelt in Haran.

And from there, when his father was dead, he moved him to this

land in which you now dwelt, which is the promised land.

He's talking to all these people in Jerusalem right now.

What's also interesting, God starts when he calls us in a

very basic way. It's it's it's somewhat not

totally clear when we're called by God to do some kind of

ministry or some kind of calling.

We just step up in faith and we be obedient to what God's put on

our heart. So this is what Abraham did, but

it's interesting. God had a plan for him, you

know, beyond waiting to his dad died, but he waited.

His father died and there was no problem with that.

God honored that, but it wasn't like immediately everything came

into clarity for him. And so he goes from there.

After his dad dies, he moves him to this land in which you now

dwell. And God gave him no inheritance

in it, not even enough to set his foot on.

What's interesting is that Abraham was the father of all

this blessing that would come to Israel and to us as New Covenant

believers. The seed of Abraham impacted us

too. It's it's the remnant, it's the

people of God from the beginning of time until the end of time

when the world is no more as we know it.

And so he's speaking to Abraham about this big plan of this

promised land. Now, Abraham never was given

anything personally. The only ground he had was hit

with the burial plot he bought to bury Sarah in.

It's probably, you know, 6 by 6 feet or something.

That was all that he had entitlement to.

But everything was futuristic here and what God was promising

to Abraham, So and God gave him no inheritance in it, not even

enough to set his foot on. But even when Abraham had no

child and Abraham waited a long time right before his son was

born Isaac remember Sarah and him they she was not fertile and

they got impatient and so Hagar came along and then Ishmael was

born and then you had that Pagan race.

It was developed that pretty much a symbolic of Islam in the

in the Mideast that came out of the seat of a Vishnail.

But Abraham and Sarah, just like you and I at times aren't

patient with God. We get ahead of God.

We want to take matters in our own hands.

We want to I think I got a better way.

I got a better idea, Lord. And so we end up messing things

up, right? Because, you know, he, he was

faithful to, to his promise. And eventually he told them that

they were going to have a child. They thought it was ridiculous

because they were too old to to be able to do this anymore.

But the Lord, you know, whenever he says he's going to do

something, he's going to do it regardless of the the

limitations of human ability, medical science.

And so God promises to do something here.

Even when Abraham didn't have a child yet, he promised to give

it to him for a possession and to his descendants after him.

But God spoke in this way that his descendants would dwell in a

foreign land and that they would bring them into bondage and

oppress them for 400 years. So not any was he given that the

picture of this promise in his covenant, but also the reality

that because of Israel's disobedience to what it was, a

goddess established that they would go into captivity for 400

years, very difficult. They wouldn't have freedom to

move about like you and I have in this country.

They were isolated and treated as slaves for many years and

abused and taken advantage of. Nonetheless, this was again the

part of the plan. So this bondage lasted all this

time, and the nation to whom they will be in bondage, God

says, I will judge, says God. And after that they shall come

out and serve me in this place. So then God had this plan for

Moses, which we'll look at here in a minute.

So he's giving all this history of what God has done since the

beginning of time to bring the reality to the world that Jesus

Christ truly is the Messiah. So he gave him the covenant of

circumcision. And so Abraham begot Isaac and

circumcised him on the 8th day. And Isaac begot Jacob and Jacob

begot the 12 patriarchs. So this is like the history of

this nation now beginning to develop and how God's going to

work through the the Jewish people.

The 8th day is significant too, because that's when it's safe

medically to do circumcision because the blood's able to be

clotted. Everything was according to the

to the plan of God. And so the patriarchs now we're

looking at next in Egypt, verse 9, and the patriarchs becoming

envious sold Joseph into Egypt so that we hear that the fathers

are the patriarchs of the nation of Israel.

These guys were scoundrels. They were jealous of their

brother Joseph and they had him arrested.

They basically didn't care if he got killed or not.

They threw him into a pit and he was taken to be a slave and in

Egypt's place and he went through a lot of adversity and

difficulty because of his so-called godly brothers.

But God was with him. No matter what happened in life,

what happens in your life, what happens in biblical history, we

have to understand if we belong to God, God is always with us,

right? He'll never leave us or forsake

us. Sometimes we feel feel like

we're alone. Sometimes we feel like he, he

doesn't care. He's not with us or he's not

watching out for us. God is always watching out for

us, always caring, always listening to our cries.

But God was with him, and he delivered him out of all his

troubles. It doesn't say he delivered him

out of some of his troubles. He delivered him out of all his

troubles, and gave him favor and wisdom in the presence of

Pharaoh, king of Egypt, And he made him governor over Egypt and

all his house. Now a famine in a great trouble

came over all the land of Egypt and Canaan, and our fathers

found those substance. There was nothing to eat.

And when Jacob heard that there was grain in Egypt, he sent out

our fathers. That's the brothers of, of

Joseph 1st. And the second time Joseph was

made known to his brothers, the first time they went down, they

didn't know that their brother was the one second in command to

Pharaoh, but they'd sure found out the second time.

And when Jacob heard that there was no grain in Egypt, he sent

the father's first. And the second time Joseph was

made known to his brothers and Joseph's family became known to

the Pharaoh. So Pharaoh said, hey, bring your

whole family down. I want to meet them and bless

them and take care of them. So Joseph sent and called his

father Jacob and all his relatives to him, 75 people.

So Jacob went down to Egypt and he died, he and our fathers, and

they were carried back to Shechem and laid in in the tomb

that Abraham bought for the sum of money from the sons of Hamor,

the father of Shechem. So here we are in this beautiful

arrangement of Joseph being in this place at this time to take

care of the the Jewish people during the famine.

Well, what happened was eventually Joseph passed on, the

new Pharaoh came on the scene, had no connection with the

people, the nation of Israel. And so the persecution then

began to occur again. The difficulty, the enslavement.

You remember the children of Israel in bondage.

You watch the movie, I'm sure 10 Commandments and saw Moses open

up the water and all that. Well, you saw the Red Sea, but

you saw how the people were being beaten and slaughtered

because they weren't working hard enough for fast enough.

And and this is a wicked, wicked leadership at the time.

And so God delivers Israel by Moses.

We'll we'll study this little section now.

And this is all building up to Steven really clearly helping

these Jewish people that think they're so religious that

they're missing the whole point when they rejected Christ and

had him crucified. But when the time of the promise

drew near which God had sworn to Abraham, the people grew and

multiplied in Egypt. I mean, this people group is

growing and growing, multiplying, growing, truly

being fruitful and multiplying till another king arose who did

not know Joseph. This man dealt treacherously

with our people and oppressed our forefathers, making them

expose their babies. Remember they they were told

they were going to kill the the first born males.

All that kind of stuff, making them expose.

Babies so they might not live. At this time Moses was born and

was well pleasing to God, and he was brought up in his father's

house for three months. But when he was set out,

Pharaoh's daughter took him away and brought him up as our own

son. And Moses was learned in all the

wisdom of the Egyptians, and was mighty in the words of deeds.

So God spared Moses like his mother, put him in that little

basket in the bull rushes, and put him in the water.

Thereafter the Pharaoh's daughter saw the baby and took

the baby as her own and raised this baby in the palace there.

And so Moses knew all about Egyptian Pagan idolatry.

He knew about all their false religion and all the stuff.

Yet he was called by God in the very beginning before he was

even born. The Bible says that God's favor

was on Moses when he was a baby. Now when he was 40 years old and

Moses lived to be 120. So Moses life is separated into

3 segments of 40 years and then when he was 40 years old it came

into his heart to visit his brother and the children of

Israel. Wasn't that interesting?

One day he gets up and all of a sudden he's got a burden for his

own people. Up until that point, he was

probably just living his life, doing his thing.

And all of a sudden the Holy Spirit puts his passion in his

heart to visit the children of Israel.

And he saw one of them suffer wrong.

He defended and avenged him who was oppressed and struck down

the Egyptians. So this Egyptians being brutal

to this Jewish slave, taking advantage of them, beating them.

Moses sees it, goes over and intervenes.

And in pushing down this Egyptian, this guy ended up

dying. He basically was murdered.

For he supposed that this brother would have understood

that God would deliver them by his hand, but they did not

understand. So Moses, whenever he had this

burden, he already understood that somehow he was responsible

to be the one who would deliver the children of Israel out of

Egypt. What a what a calling all these

people, millions of people and one man.

And he senses this burden that they got to be helped, they got

to someone's got to do something to get these people out of this

horrible place and under this terrible bondage.

So he supposed that his brother would have understood that God

would deliver them by his hand, but they didn't understand.

So the next day he appears to two of them as they're fighting.

So 2 Jewish guys, they're fighting about who knows what.

And he tries to reconcile them saying, men, you are brethren,

you belong to each other, your family.

Why do you wrong one another that he who did his neighbor

wrong pushed him away, saying, who made you a ruler and a judge

over us? Do you want to kill me as you

did the Egyptian yesterday. Then as this saying, Moses fled

and became a dweller in the land of Midian where he had two sons.

So Moses hears us. He's probably looking around.

I hope no one heard this. I'm getting out of here because

they catch me for this. I'm I'm in trouble.

So so he took off. It's interesting that any

messenger that God has sent and you can study throughout the Old

Testament. Isaiah was a prophet.

He was son into Jeremiah was sown in a prison.

I mean, all the people that God had sent to bring the message

was always somehow either martyred, rejected, or just

betrayed. This is just the the history of

of the nation of Israel. Thanks for joining us on this

journey through Acts. On today's edition of Living

Waters of Grace, Pastor Clark shares that one of the most

remarkable things about the book of Acts is how it shows the

disciples transformation. The followers of Jesus we meet

here are very different from the often confused and fearful

disciples in the Gospels. After Jesus's death and

resurrection, and especially through the power of the Holy

Spirit, the apostles experienced a profound change in their

hearts and boldness. Their faith became unwavering,

and they moved forward with courage to spread the gospel

despite opposition and hardship. Acts reminds us that the same

Spirit who empowered them is at work in US today, shaping our

hearts and giving us strength to live boldly for Christ.

Living Waters of Grace is a ministry of Calvary Chapel

Westmoreland. If you're in the Greensburg, PA

area, we invite you to join us this Sunday at 10:30 AM at 400 E

Pittsburgh St. Unit 6B.

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