Living Waters of Grace 09.15.25

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.

In the church, as elders, we pray and say, Lord, what about

this? What do you think we should do?

And we talk and we listen and we listen to different

perspectives. And we, we wait and we pray.

And many times when we pray, we're really not sure

immediately what we should do, right?

So we wait on the Lord. There's no hurry to make any

decision until there's consensus in what it is in the mind of the

Lord. You want the mind of the Lord

right? In regard to decisions.

You definitely want the mind of the Lord in regard to His will

for the Church. Seeking God's will is like

waiting for dawn. Trusting the light will

breakthrough in time. In today's message, Pastor Clark

reveals how you should pause and pray before big decisions,

ensuring you align with God's plan.

You might fast or seek agreement with others, refusing to move

until His will is clear. In the church, leaders do the

same, praying and listening for God's direction without rushing.

Sometimes answers aren't immediate, so you wait patiently

for clarity. God's mind is what you see, not

hasty choices. Now here's Pastor Clark in Acts

chapter one with today's edition of Living Waters of Grace.

It's not for you to know the times or seasons which the

Father has put in his own authority.

People love to sort of plan and in her mind study.

This is when I think Jesus is going to come and they have it

all calculated. They can use computers now and

algorithms and figure out dates and based upon different feasts

in the Old Testament or whatever.

I've never met anybody that got it right yet.

You know Jesus is there's only one that knows the big the

return of Christ to this world to set up the Kingdom, and

that's the Father. But you, he changes the subject.

But you in verse 8 shall receive power when the Holy Spirit has

come upon you, and you shall be witnesses to me in Jerusalem and

old Judea and Samaria and to the end of the earth.

And so they're in Jerusalem, OK, Samaria encompasses the regions

of Jerusalem. And eventually, you know,

they're going to go out towards Samaria, which is northern

regions outside of Jerusalem already.

You see, the, the plan of the Lord is to get the gospel out

throughout the whole earth, right?

And eventually it did go around the whole earth, and it's still

going around the whole world. Now, the Commission we have as a

church is to be involved in world missions, which we are,

and you got to be focused on this, not Greensburg or Latrobe

or Mount Pleasant or Irwin or North Huntington or wherever we

come from. We have to be focused, yes, on

our Jerusalem, which would be Greensburg here.

But then we also have to be focused on our Judea, which

would be the surrounding areas around the Greensburg area.

And then the Samaria. Maybe it's going out toward

Indiana or Johnstown or down towards Mckeesport or whatever,

but the ultimate plan of God is that this gospel goes throughout

the whole earth, right? And we work with the Dawsons.

They work in the jungles of Venezuela, working, reaching

tribal people who've never once heard the name of Jesus Christ.

That's exciting for me personally to think about those

folks. They're reaching unreached

people groups. And then we have Philip Jackson

that works in Macedonia at that part of the world, Philip and

Lynn. And we have Philemon and Sheba

who work with the people in Pakistan.

We have Nick, I'd mentioned it works with crew.

We have another couple, Dave and Cindy Bentz at those sports

camps over there in Spain. And then we have others, you

know, that we, we support and, and are behind and, and

prayerfully, you know, involved with, in, in regards to the

gospel. But the whole idea is OK, while

they're doing what they're doing out there, we're doing what

we're doing here right through Grace FM, the radio through you

guys inviting people to Calvary or tell them about the radio or

just giving them a track and praying for them or talking to

them about the Lord Jesus. But this is the big picture

here. The Lord them to be witnesses of

him, and all these different places.

And so in verse 9. Now when he had spoken these

things, while they watched, he was taken up, and a cloud

received them out of their sight.

And while they looked steadfastly toward heaven, as He

went up, behold, 2 men stood by them in white apparel, who also

said, Men of Galilee, why do you stand gazing up into heaven?

This same Jesus who was taken up from you into heaven will so

come and like manner as you saw him go into heaven.

This experience of cloud is not something that's uncommon in the

history of the Jewish people. They knew that the pillar of

fire moved that nation at night during their time from Egypt to

the Promised Land. And the the cloud descended and

and was upon the Tabernacle in the in the daytime.

And they were told not to move unless the cloud moved.

So they're familiar with clouds. Peter, James, and John were

there at the Mount of Transfiguration when Moses and

Elijah showed up on the mountain within the cloud.

The cloud represents the glory of God, the kind of glory, the

presence of God, the Kabat of God, the very deep presence of

God. May we personally experience in

our times of privacy with the Lord in prayer, that cloud

manifesting itself all around our being that we might

experience the glory of God and the depth of God and the power

of God. And so they're, they're looking

at this scene and these two men are angels.

They're in white apparel, very similar to the angels that were

at the tomb when Jesus was resurrected.

And he they asked him a very basic question.

Why are you gazing up into the clouds?

The same Jesus who was taken up from you into heaven will so

come in like manners. You saw him go into heaven.

So they're literally looking and they're seeing Christ go up into

the to the Kingdom and the clouds sit at the right hand,

the Father, and they're also telling them the same Jesus is

being taken up from you will also return in like manner.

And the Bible declares that when the Lord returns and says every

eye will see him. And how is that possible?

What if he, you know, he's descending on the Mount of

Olives in Jerusalem? He, he's ascending from the

Mount of Olives. Mount of Olives is a couple 100

feet up from the Old City of Jerusalem.

So when you're up on the hill, you can look down and see the

Old City. It's about half a mile from the

city up to the Mount of Olives. They're able to walk on the

Sabbath about a half a mile, which is what that is.

They weren't breaking their their law at the time, but the

Lords reminding us that whenever he comes back that every eye

will see him and and how's that going to happen?

Well, we got cell phones, right? And the phone will be like going

off like crazy. Some object is coming from the

clouds way up there in the universe.

What is it? It's real bright.

It's like there's this crowd of it looks like angels coming, you

know, and that's the coming of the Lord.

At the second coming, every eye will see him.

Matter of fact, it says the Jewish people that are alive at

the time will look up and see him whom they've pierced.

And there'll be great revival for the nation of Israel at that

time because they're going to say he is the Messiah.

He's the one we were waiting for all this time.

And the hands will be evidence of the piercing and they'll see

him as he truly is. And so then they returned to

Jerusalem in verse 12 from the mount, caught all of it.

That's the Mount of Olives, which is near Jerusalem, a

Sabbath's day journey, as I said, about a half a mile from

the Old City. And when they had entered, they

went up into the upper room where they were staying.

So there's this upper room where they had the Lord's Supper, if

you remember, before Jesus was crucified, appears to be the

same place. And, and there's approximately

120 people in this upper room. It's a big room.

And the some of the names of the people who were there, Peter,

James, John, Andrew, Phillip, Thomas, Bartholomew, Matthew,

James the son of Alpheus, Simon the jealous zealot, and Judas

the son of James, that's not the one that took his life.

This is different Judas. These all continued with 1

accord in prayer and supplications with the women and

Mary the mother of Jesus with and with his brothers.

So the closest people to the Lord at the time are in that

room under the authority of the Lord's request to tell them to

wait in that upper room. It had to be astounding them

anticipating what it was that God said was going to actually

occur. They had to be excited.

They had to be wondering what will this do for me?

What will this do to change my life?

What will the Holy Spirit actually do to me at this time?

And what's interesting to me is that they speak in verse 14.

They continued with 1 accord in prayer.

There was no arguments. There was no posturing for

authority or disagreements. Or I like this better than that.

Or why don't we have better food here over the next 10 days?

You know, can someone go out to Chick-fil-A and get us something

better than what we're having to eat here?

No, they just were focusing on the big picture of the Holy

Spirit and they were praying and they were all praying in unison.

There's nothing better than praying with people that have

the same heart as you do for the Lord.

There's nothing better than being in the presence of others

who love the Lord like you do. And you pray with one another

and there's no disagreement because you're praying according

to the will of the Father. And they were all in this unity

and this oneness together, praising God, lifting up

supplications, request with the women.

Some of the wives of the apostles were there.

Some of these famous women we read about at the resurrection

of Jesus. And also Mary, the Lord's mother

is there with his brothers. His brothers were interesting.

They didn't really believe until after the resurrection.

Some of his brothers, they just saw Jesus as the one who always

never did anything wrong. They get in trouble, the

brothers with the parents. This is perfect.

And you know, why doesn't Jesus ever get spanked?

Why doesn't he ever get yelled at?

Because Jesus is perfect, One pastor said at a different

friends of Jesus and his relatives would call him a goody

2 sandals. You know, he just that would be

challenging, wouldn't it? And they just couldn't believe

that he was Messiah at the time. As a matter of fact, said many

people at that time, because of remembering him being raised by

Carpenter father, that he was a carpenter's son, that he learned

carpentry, that there's nothing special about this guy.

Matter of fact, he's from Nazareth.

And that's the bad side of town. And we don't we don't anticipate

anything coming from that place. Matter of fact says can anything

good come out of Nazareth? And so they're they're waiting

for the Lord to to do what he promised he would do on the day

of Pentecost. And in those days, Peter stood

up in the midst of the disciples.

Altogether the number of names was about 120.

It's interesting here, Peter, not too many days since his

fiasco of denying the Lord had authority with the group of the

apostles. He was the first among equals.

He stood up with authority and he was reminding them about some

things from the Scriptures and he said, men and brethren, verse

16, This Scripture had to be fulfilled, which the Holy Spirit

spoke by the mouth of David concerning Judas, who became a

guide to those who rested Jesus. For he was numbered with us and

obtain a part in this ministry. Now this man purchased the field

with the wages of iniquity, and falling headlong, he burst open

in the middle of all his entrails, gushed out, and it

became known to all those dwelling in Jerusalem, so that

the field is called in their own language Echaldema, that is the

field of blood, for it is written in the book of the

Psalms. And this is Psalm 69 and Psalm

109. Let his dwelling place be

desolate and let no one live in it and let another take his

office. So it's believed that whenever

Judas hung himself, he was hanging over sort of like a

Cliff area and the rope broke and when he fell, he fell on the

rocks. And that's why everything, you

know, busted up in his body. So now he isn't around.

There has to be one that will take his place.

Be the 12th. It says that therefore in verse

21 of these men who have accompanied us all the time that

the Lord Jesus went in and out among us.

You had the the 70 were who were close followers of Christ that

had the ability to be claim or name the next apostle.

They had to be involved in the baptism of John and they also

had to literally see Christ after his resurrection.

Those were two main rules that had to be enforced for someone

to be ordained an apostle. Beginning from the baptism of

John to the day he was taken up from US, one of these must

become a witness with us of his resurrection.

And so they proposed to. There's two candidates here,

Joseph called Barsabbas, who was surnamed Justice, and Matthias.

And they prayed and they said, you, O Lord, who know the hearts

of all, show which of these two you have chosen to take part in

this ministry. An apostleship from which Judas

by transgression felt that he might go to his own place.

So they're seeking the Lord's guidance.

They're praying. Which of these two should be

chosen? And it's interesting in verse

26. And they cast their lots and the

lot fell on Matthias and he was numbered with the 11 apostles.

This way of making decisions occur after this time in Acts.

There was never another time where they cast lots.

Sometimes you might say, and I've been around people, what's

the Lord's? Well, I don't know, let's flip a

coin. You know, 5050, you could be

right or you could be wrong. I, I don't particularly feel

comfortable with those kind of decision making processes.

But I think as we pray in New Testament believers, you pray in

your home as a husband and wife about a decision you need to

make and you wait on the Lord. Maybe you fast, you wait and you

don't want to make a decision unless you're both in agreement

about what it is you feel God's will is for your life.

In the same way in the church as elders, we pray and say, Lord,

what about this? What do you think we should do?

And we talk and we listen and we listen to different perspectives

and we, we wait and we pray. And many times when we pray,

we're really not sure immediately what we should do,

right? So we wait on the Lord.

There's no hurry to make any decision until there's consensus

on what it is in the mind of the Lord.

You want the mind of the Lord, right?

In regards to decisions, You definitely want the mind of the

Lord in regard to his will for the church.

And the mind of the Lord is revealed to us in the Bible, in

the Scriptures. And back in those days, you got

to realize they didn't have the New Testament written yet, did

they? They were referring all the time

to the Old Testament. And how did they do things in

the Old Testament? They had the Urim and the

Thummim, right? They were like dice and they

would give them some kind of direction.

They cast lots. That's just the way they did

things, right? But now we wait and we seek the

Lord, as it tells us in James. If any of you lack wisdom, let

him ask of God, who gives to all men liberally and doesn't hold

back. So if you need to make a

decision about something and you're waiting and you don't

know what to do, don't be impulsive.

Ask God for wisdom. Ask the Holy Spirit for

direction, and God will give you the direction that you need so

you'll know what to do. You don't have to guess.

You don't have to do things. I hope this is right, or I'm not

sure. If you're not sure and you don't

think it's right, wait on the Lord.

Wait on the Lord. Trust in the Lord with all your

heart and lean not. Ensure an understanding in all

your ways. Acknowledge Him and He will

direct your paths. Amen.

That's a good verse to memorize and it's a promise that God will

truly direct your path as you wait upon Him.

And so this is the gentleman that they picked, Matthias.

Paul was not the 12th apostle. Paul wasn't involved with the

baptism of John, nor was he present in the literal physical

resurrect. He saw the resurrection

resurrected Christ in his conversion experience in the

road to Damascus. But Paul was an apostle, but not

one of the 12 and his his significance as apostle was

obviously supernatural because of how he wrote.

Most of the New Testament and most of what it is we read about

God's will for us as a church comes from the writings of Paul.

However, Luke the evangelist wrote about 27% of the New

Testament, which is interesting from the book of Luke and the

book of the Acts of the Apostles.

So Luke, not an apostle, but also very significant player in

the big plan of God. And so you look at your life, I

look at mine, Who am I? Who are you?

We're disciples, right? We're followers of Jesus Christ

and every one of us have been given a call by God.

Not one is more important or less important in the Church of

Jesus Christ. The one we worship and we

elevate is Christ. He's the only one we lift up and

we magnify. Every one of us are at the level

of the cross, equal, and we're all seeking to find the ways of

God and to please him and to live for him.

These guys had the responsibility of as, as the New

Testament tells us, upon the chief cornerstone.

And the truth of the New Testament church is built upon

the apostles and prophets, right?

Laid upon the foundation of Jesus Christ.

There's no other foundation that can be laid for the truth of

Christianity than Jesus Christ and the foundation of the

apostles and prophets, which has given us this, the word of God.

And we can know when people ask you questions about what they

should do, what's the Lord told told you that I don't know.

Well, if you looked in the Scriptures, if you sought the

mind of the Lord. And lots of times people say,

no, I haven't done that. Well, I'm certainly not going to

tell you what to do. You got to seek God for what He

wants you to do. And again, that's the work of

the Holy Spirit and why He dwells in US.

It says He will God us in all truth.

And so therefore of these men who have accompanied us all the

time, verse 21, that the Lord Jesus went in and out among us,

beginning from the baptism of John to that day when he was

taken up from US. One of these must become a

witness with us of the resurrection.

And so they castle lots and Matthias became the 12th

apostle. I'm not going to go into chapter

2. It's too dynamic and too too big

to cover in 5 minutes. There's no way.

But Rita had chapter 2. If you've got questions about

anything, Acts has some interesting controversial

statements at times that people can misunderstand.

And depending on what church kind of background you had, you

might have a different understanding of some of these

things in regards to the work and the person and the Holy

Spirit. Feel free to e-mail me and I'll

do the best I can to show you what I, what we sense in this

church the Scripture teaches regarding the role and the work

of the Holy Spirit. OK, so let's pray.

Father God, we thank you Lord for the word Lord, we just thank

you already for the leading into this very, very significant Day

in History, Pentecost. We look forward to studying this

together and explored and each of us have been recipients.

If we're born again, we've experienced this baptism of your

spirit into your body. Lord, there is no denomination

in the body of Christ. There is no ethnicity in the

body of Christ. We've grouped this together.

Neither bond nor free, Jew or Gentile, male or female.

We've been all made to drink of that one rock, that spiritual

rock, which is Christ. So the unity of the Church of

all believers everywhere, in all places at all times, who have

been born again and baptized by your Spirit.

You've placed each of us individually into the body of

Christ as a whole, and then you've placed us in individual

churches, Father, and we're grateful.

I pray, O Holy Spirit, today that you would take your

teaching and sow it into the hearts of us, your, your kids,

Lord, that we might understand and we might grow in the grace

and the knowledge of you. That we might have a greater

dependence upon You, Holy Spirit, in everything we do.

That we would ask for your help moment by moment and show us,

Lord, your will and your direction, Your blessings.

Father, we remember always, Lord, what you went through for

us on the cross, Your suffering, Your death.

We remember your burial and we praise you and glorify you in

the resurrection. And also, Lord, today we learned

about your ascension into heaven, that you'll come back

the same way you left. Lord, we bring our hearts to

you. Some are broken, perhaps some

are mixed up, Lord. Some are hurting God, some are

rejoicing and blessed at all. Kind of different moods in each

of our lives, Lord. And Lord, we pray for one

another that you would promise us, Lord, as you do promise us

that if we draw near to you, You will draw near to us.

We're so thankful, Lord, when we leave this place for not leaving

you. You go with us, Lord, wherever

we go, You promise us you'll never leave us or forsake us.

And Lord, I pray for myself personally this week as I pray

for my brothers and sisters that you would open up an opportunity

for me to be able to tell someone about you.

That every relationship we have, that we would be led to your

Spirit and know the timing and look for the Segway, the

opportunity to to tell someone about what you've done for us.

If they don't know you, that they would come to know you as

well. That's our prayer.

And we know that's your prayer as well, Lord.

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, 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.

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