Living Waters of Grace 09.23.25

This is Living Waters of Grace, the teaching ministry of Clark

Waffer, senior pastor of Calvary Chapel of Westmoreland, County

of Greensburg, PA. Now here's Pastor Clark as he

continues teaching through God's Word.

Whenever the Word of God goes forth, it has this power to

convict us of our sin, our mistakes, our weaknesses, our

ungodliness, our selfishness, our lust, our bitterness, our

unforgiveness, all the things that are in the human heart

because of sin. So whenever we hear the Word, we

have to repent, and repent is a change of mind.

Whenever the Word of God really hits you and hits me it, it's a

call to action. It's a call to change.

God's Word is like a mirror showing you the truth about your

heart. In today's message, Pastor Clark

describes how Scripture can Pierce through convicting you of

sin. It might expose your weaknesses

or self centeredness, revealing what's in your human heart.

When you hear His word, it calls you to repent, to change your

mind and direction. It's not just words, it's a

prompt to transform your life. Are you letting God's Word

convict and change your heart when it speaks to you now?

Here's Pastor Clark in Acts Chapter 3 with today's edition

Acts 3 · chapter mention

of Living Waters of Grace. Well, let's open in prayer.

We're in the book of the Acts today, Acts chapter 3.

Acts 3 · chapter mention

If you have your Bibles, you can turn there.

And we will be going through this particular book verse by

verse like we do all the time. Let's pray.

Father, we're thankful today that you are the good and

gracious King. Lord, we're grateful how you

penetrate our hearts by your Holy Spirit, Lord, how you

activate this life in US, daily life in Christ by the Spirit of

God that Lord, there's never a moment that we're left alone

that you are with us 24/7. And Lord, I'm also grateful for

this desire that you put on us as your kids to go deeper in you

to discover you more. Lord, to be amazed of your

wonder and your grace. And Lord, it is your grace that

you supplied to us, that we might first of all be recipients

of the grace and the love and the mercy, but that Lord, then

we would be able to be conduits that can send us forth from our

lives. Lord, we know that in our own

strength and our own ability, Lord, we have limitations

spiritually. We only can go so far, but Lord,

when you give us grace you, you expand the horizons of our

ability to bless and impact others.

And that's what we ask for each of us.

And Lord, just bless this day together.

And we pray for your church throughout the earth today and

every city and every community where the word is clearly being

taught. May you bless the pastors and

the churches. And we pray these things in

Jesus name, Amen. So before I start today in this

continuing teaching on Acts chapter 3, verse 17, I want to

Acts 3:17

review a couple things in regard to what it is that's happening

in us as we study this book together.

First of all, the focal point of this book is Jesus Christ, like

every other book of the Bible, but even more so the work of of

God, the Holy Spirit. God is triune Father, Son and

Holy Spirit and the Spirit of God is obviously teaching us the

word of God. He is the teacher, Jesus said,

and he will guide us into all truth.

He's also the comforter and he's the encourager and he's the

helper. And so as we study this and we

look at the apostles lives, we have to see how different they

are because of the Holy Spirit in them.

I think of the the ministry and the responsibility we all have

as as servants of the Lord and to love others, love people with

a supernatural love, and we can't do that apart from the

Holy Spirit. We need the grace of God to

impart to us this supernatural love.

This is not something you or I can manifest in our own

strength, our own ability, our love runs short, our love runs

dry at times, even though we know where to love our enemies

or where to love people, where to care about people.

It's real easy to be self-centered and self-serving.

And so we always need to ask the Holy Spirit to fill us again,

over and over and over again. The the work of the Holy Spirit

isn't a one time experience when we first get saved.

The the need of the Spirit of God is something we need 24/7.

We need to be filled with the Spirit and we can ask the Holy

Spirit to fill us and he will for whatever particular

responsibility we have this in everyday life.

And so the life of, of Peter and the apostles is so different

than what we read in the Gospels and how they acted at times.

And so we'll, we'll study and we'll see this experience of, of

the Spirit in Peter's life as as he deals with the persecution

that's beginning to occur in his life because of the ministry

that he's been called to. So I'm going to read from verse

11 to 17 just to review what we covered.

And then we'll we'll start detail study in verse 17.

So this is Peter preaching in Solomon's portico in verse 11.

Now as a lame man who was healed held on to Peter and John, all

the people ran together to them in the porch, which is called

Solomon's, greatly amazed. So when Peter saw it, he

responded to the people. Men of Israel, why do you marvel

at this, or why look so intently at us, as though by our own

power or godliness we have made this man walk?

The God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, the God of our fathers,

glorified His servant Jesus, whom you delivered up and denied

in the presence of Pilate when he was determined to let him go.

But you denied the Holy One and the just and asked for a

murderer to be granted to you and killed the Prince of life

whom God raised from the dead at which we are witnesses.

And His name, through faith in His name, has made this man

strong whom you see and know. Yes, the faith which comes

through him has given him this perfect soundness in the

presence of you all. So Peter's proclaiming this

miracle through the work of the Holy Spirit.

If you remember this weeks before the denial of of Peter in

that situation where they were asking him if he was affiliated

with Jesus, he was afraid and he said no, actually denied him

three times. Now, how different is he?

He's speaking with boldness the the gospel of Jesus Christ and

he said verse 17. Yet now, brethren, I know that

you did it in ignorance and as did also your rulers.

So he's letting them know that what they did, which was

horrific. Obviously being responsible for

the crucifixion of Christ, not only them, but all of us.

Our sin is obviously the responsibility of ourselves in

regard to how we've lived our lives that Jesus had to die for

our sins. But he's telling them that in

their blindness, in their ignorance, they did this as also

the rulers did. And that's grace.

That's a message of grace that Peter's preaching to these

people. He's not castigating or putting

them down or making making them feel worse than they probably

feel already as they begin to get convicted by the Spirit of

God. But he's letting them know that

the things they did, they did because they were blind, they

couldn't see who the Lord was. They they didn't realize their

need of, of God. And, and so he's being merciful

to them and, and gentle, but also bold and truthful.

And he said in verse 18, But those things which God foretold

by the mouth of all his prophets that the Christ would suffer, he

has thus fulfilled. So in other words, they were

responsible obviously for the mandate of of having Christ

crucified, choosing Jesus to be martyred instead of Barabbas.

He's also letting them know that all this was prophesized in the

Old Testament through the prophets of God, that this event

had to come to pass. There was no other way that

mankind could be saved or redeemed or forgiven or cleansed

from their sin apart from the work of Jesus Christ and His

death, burial and resurrection. So he told them that what Christ

had accomplished and what He suffered was a fulfillment of

what was prophesized by the prophets thousands of years

before this event actually occurred and as a result of what

had happened. Peter then speaks and tells them

in verse 19, Repent therefore and be converted, that your sins

may be blotted out so that the times of refreshing may come

from the presence of the Lord. So what happens is whenever the

word of God goes forth, it has this power to convict us of our

sin, our mistakes, our weaknesses, our ungodliness, our

selfishness, our lust, our bitterness, our unforgiveness,

all the things that are in the human heart because of sin.

So whenever we hear the word, we have to repent and repent is a

change of mind. Whenever the word of God really

hits you and hits me, it's a call to action.

It's a call to change. It's a call to transformation.

It isn't like you just hear it. Well, yeah, I know.

Like I'm not living right and this is wrong, but you know, it

is what it is. No, When God really gets ahold

of your heart, He begins to give you this desire to want to

change your evil ways. You want to go in a different

direction. You want your life to change.

And that's the evidence of really having a heart that's

been hit by the Lord and convicted by the Spirit to

change our ways. Repent therefore and be

converted. Now we cannot be converted or

born again or transformed or saved.

Whatever word you want to put in there in lieu of the word

converted, you can't be transformed unless you repent.

So the message of the gospel has to have this message of

repentance. Jesus said repent for the

Kingdom of heaven is in hand. I mean, a lot of people have a

God loves you, has a wonderful plan for you.

And and that's true, but without the message of repentance,

people will receive that message that their lives won't change

because it's a feel good kind of story, right?

There's no emphasis on why we need to be saved or no emphasis

on why we need to change because the gospel fully has not been

proclaimed. Jesus fully proclaimed the

gospel. John the Baptist proclaimed the

truth of the need of repentance. And the apostles all through the

New Testament talk about this need to repent.

And the church today needs to to revive this message of

repentance and make sure that we all know that this is what is

required of us in order to be forgiven.

We have to have this desire and this attitude to change our

ways. And this isn't just when we get

saved. We are to repent continually.

The word metanoia is an active verb tense.

So it's all day long. If I have a wrong attitude, I

have a wrong action. I have a wrong thought, a wrong

focus, right? We all know what that's like,

that the Spirit of God convicts us, and I need to say that's

wrong. Lord, forgive me and go the

direction that the Lord's leading me.

Not ignore the Lord or not blow it off, but deal with what it is

I have to deal with now. Repentance in the heart is

uncomfortable at times because we don't like to think about

like our inadequacy or, you know, fallenness or weaknesses.

We, we sort of want to have a better opinion of ourselves than

we should many times. And I'm not talking about having

a a bad opinion, but I'm, I'm talking about having a true

opinion. We're not to think of ourselves

more highly than we ought to think, right?

So I'm vulnerable. You're vulnerable to the work of

the Holy Spirit and I need corrected in my life.

Cindy reminds me of that often if you're married, you know your

spouse is, you're the second person to the Holy Spirit in

their life. They point things out when you

need to make some changes and address some things, right?

And that's a good thing. Even though many times we, we

want to excuse things and not listen to them.

But I I find as I want to go deeper with the Lord, and I know

you do too, I just don't want to have this superficial

relationship with God. I want to have this intimate,

close friendship with God as I know He desires to have with me.

And in order for that to be happening and having fellowship

with God, I have to respond to what it is He's speaking to my

heart to deal with. And that is important.

It's not so much anymore to be saved.

I'm saved, you're saved. When Christ died, He died for

all your sins, past, present and future.

But it's the relationship with God, it's like if you, if you

have a friend or a loved one or someone you work with that

you've offended and you know you've offended them, you

usually should have the desire to want to be reconciled and

make amends if you can and say, please forgive me for this.

And I was wrong. And most people in in life are,

are have a tendency to be gracious and forgive.

And that's a good thing. But you know, for God, our

relationship with him, he loves us and forgives us even when I

don't ask for forgiveness in my daily life.

But what happens is my heart will then begin to grow, grow

cold and distant and hard. And sometimes when you find

yourself in a position in life where the word isn't affecting

you like you know it should or you aren't like worshipping God

or you don't want to attend any kind of Bible studies or church

meetings or whatever, you're, you're, you're moving away.

It's always a, a picture of backsliding or refusal to

repent. And then our heart begins become

hardened, as Paul says, through the deceitfulness of sin, sins

very deceitful, we can justify our behavior and our actions and

our attitudes, thinking that we're right and everybody else

is wrong. And and God's like, hey, you

know, you got to deal with this. So I'm dealing with stuff on a

daily basis. And it's not a negative thing or

a cloud thing or God's not a God of condemnation, is he?

He's not a God of thrown guilt trips on us.

It's all about this love that he wants us to experience every

day. He wants to love on us.

And it breaks his heart whenever we have things in the way in our

lives that we can't receive that love.

We can't experience that love, We can't interact with that

love. So this need of repentance is a

very, very important message. Now, the majority of the people

at this time were listeners and they weren't believers.

And so Peter is obviously throwing the net out so that

people would do what he's, you know, commanding them to do,

repent and be converted. And what happens is when these

people, and there was 3000 that got saved in the first sermon of

Peters, there's approximately 2000 it says in the Bible that

came to know the Lord during this sermon.

So there's now 5000 people, but there's a lot of people that are

listening that still aren't receiving this message,

especially the religious leaders, they were very tuned

out to Christ being the Messiah. To this day, the nation of

Israel for the most part is tuned out that Jesus is the Lord

and the Messiah. And so he tells them that if

they repent, their sins will be blotted out.

And that word blotted out means totally erased.

And there'll be no more record of their guilt ever again for

all eternity. So that the times of refreshing

may come from the presence of the Lord.

So not only are they forgiven, but then you know what it's like

when you get forgiven, you are refreshed.

You sense God's favor, his smile.

It's, it's a joyful thing to have our sins forgiven.

It's a joyful thing to have relationships reestablished

through forgiveness and, and reconciliation.

There's nothing like it. It's, it's just refreshing and

it, and that kind of refreshing only can come from this presence

of the Lord. And I desire, and I know you do

too, I want to have a deeper awareness of the presence of the

Lord in my life. It's what makes life worth

living. It's what makes life joyful and

peaceful. I don't want to live like

mentally, I know this stuff, but it doesn't affect my moment by

moment existence. I, I want to be able to, to look

at the creation and look at the beautiful day that He's given us

today and have a praise and a worship of my heart for his

mercies and his love and His kindness as the good and

gracious King. What a beautiful song to think

about and reflect upon that He has done all this stuff because

He loves us. And so for us to interact and

receive it and experience that, we have to have these kind of

hearts that are conditioned to keep turning toward God, keep

turning toward God, keep turning to God.

And then he says something profound here in verse 20.

And that he may send Jesus Christ.

He was preached to you before whom heaven must receive until

the times of restoration of all things which God has spoken by

the mouth of his holy prophet since the world began.

So there's this indication here that if the nation of Israel

would have accepted the Lord nationally, that the second

coming of Christ would have happened at that particular

time. Profound insight that the Lord,

you know, he wants to come and establish his Kingdom, but he's

waiting and he's waiting and he's waiting for the masses of

the world to turn toward him until that last person is saved.

It's called the time of the fullness of Gentiles in the book

of Romans, when that last person, wherever they are in the

middle of the world, some tribe somewhere or some major city,

that last person, whenever the body of Christ is full, that the

trump will sound and the rapture will occur.

The dead in Christ will rise, and we which are alive will be

caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in

the air and say, shall we ever be with the Lord?

And then the second coming of Christ at the end of the

seven-year tribulation. But when the Lord is preaching

through Peter, in this particular instance, you got to

realize that the audience was primarily Jewish.

The speakers were Jewish, the leaders of the synagogue were

Jewish, the population was in that area of Jerusalem

predominantly Jewish. The Lord came to His own

initially and the Bible says the his own received him not

eventually. The gospel was open to the

audience of the world, the Gentiles, everyone else.

But God chose through Abraham in Genesis chapter 12 that there

Genesis 12 · chapter mention

would be this covenant made with this group of people that lived

in the nation of Israel. And through the seed of Abraham,

which would obviously be Jesus, all the nations of the earth

would be blessed. That's all of us.

The whole world would be blessed because of what God had done in

and through the nation of Israel.

They were the people that God utilized as the prophets.

The greatest prophet of that time was known as Moses.

In verse 22 it says For Moses truly said to the fathers all

those who were in leadership at the time in the nation of

Israel. The Lord your God will raise up

for you a prophet like me. From your brethren, Him you

shall hear, and all things whatever He says to you, and it

shall be that to every soul who will not hear.

That prophet shall be utterly destroyed from among the people.

So Moses spoke about the Messiah who was to come.

The nation of Israel has gone through tremendous heartache,

burned in ovens, all kind of things going on.

And it isn't over yet. The, the, the army of the north,

Russia in the last days will be that country that will descend

upon them to try to destroy them.

And you used to think, boy, I don't know, it doesn't seem

possible. Russia seems like a very calm

country, right? Sort of picking up some of the

ideologies of capitalism and free enterprise and religious

freedom and all that, and then all of a sudden this rogue

leader in Russia has become a tyrant, right?

Do you think it's possible that if he does this to Ukraine, he

could do this to Israel? The intentions prophetically are

directed that way. And in time this will all be

unfolded. I don't know if it's going to be

in our lifetime, another 100 years, whatever 1000, but it is

prophetically in the Bible regarding what will happen in

that last period of the seven-year tribulation, in the

last 3 1/2 years. So Moses is being referenced by

Peter. Peter knows the prophets and

knows the Old Testament Torah in the Scriptures.

This is this is how they preach. They preach from the Old

Testament. Now as New Covenant believers,

we preach the gospel primarily from the New Testament.

We can use the Old Testament, but the New Covenant is far

better than the Old Covenant. The Old Covenant we learn

historically of how God worked through his nation Israel.

Unfortunately, almost to no avail.

The nation of Israel, in spite of having all these blessings

and promises, they've still refused to believe for the most

part that Jesus is the Messiah. And so Peter's telling them that

Moses told you guys that Jesus is the Christ, the Messiah.

You're to hear from him. Verse 24.

Yes. And all the prophets from Samuel

and those who follow, as many as have spoken have also foretold

these days that this wasn't Moses, there was others.

You are sons of the prophets and of the covenant which God made

with our fathers saying to Abraham, and in your seed all

the families of the earth shall be blessed to you first.

God having raised up his servant, Jesus sent him to bless

you and turning away every one of you from your iniquities.

And so the gospel is the same today as it was in the days of

the book of the Acts. It's still empowered by the the

work of the Holy Spirit and it convicts people and it causes

them to see their need of Jesus. But for some reason right now,

and you can study this later, we went through it extensively when

we went through the book of Romans.

You can read Romans chapter Doctor 9:10 and 11:00 and it'll

sort of encapsulate all this plan that God has for Israel

while they're blind and part so that the the gospel would come

to us and we would receive it and that eventually Israel and

the Jewish people would become jealous of us because we've

become partakers of this covenant that God gave to

Abraham. They've sort of cut themselves

off from the covenant temporarily because of their

unbelief. Thank.

You 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 move 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. Visit calvarychapelonline.com

For more information where you can also join our e-mail list,

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available. We're so grateful that you

joined us today in Acts. TuneIn again soon for another

edition of Living Waters of Grace.