broadcasting from the west side of big brother city in the heart of gridlock county where preaching with impact is like plowing pavement people continue to place their hope in unsatisfying things this is the frederick faith debate sponsored by putman plumbing and heating how can we make you smile we are online at wfmd.com if you've been listening last couple of weeks then you know that we've heard Uh, couldn't squeeze it into just two shows. And so, uh, here we are getting the tail end of it on for this week's show. So it's about five or six minutes of this, and then we've got some special surprises for you coming up after we finish off this message. So we're going to pick me up probably in mid thought here. So I apologize for that, but, uh, listen to the podcast. You can listen to the three shows back to back to back and get a better flow perhaps. I began today by saying that there is a crisis in our culture. There is a cultural crisis in our church. And I wonder if it hasn't infected almost all of the churches throughout the land. But it is a cultural crisis. The church itself is not in crisis. I want to encourage us all by reminding us that Christ's church is beautiful. The church is Christ himself and all who are truly united to him, not the posers. Christ is the church. Christ is beautiful. Christ's church, therefore, is beautiful. The true spiritual church that God sees. Let's walk in that truth. Not discouraged, but recommitted to resting on His power. The power that He grants us through His Spirit. Christ has given us His Holy Spirit to bring us together in unity, together in prayer, together in witnessing. This is true for the church universally, and it is true for godly church leaders, and it is true for us individually. Equipped for unity, prayer, and faithful witness. Let's pray. And in the spirit of what's going on this month, last week I believe your message was on Ephesians chapter 2. And if you don't already do this, I would commend to you to think about praying God's word back to Him. Because that's what we're going to do right now. We're going to pray Ephesians chapter 2 back to God. Father God in heaven, we thank you and we praise you. For we were dead in our transgressions. and sins in which we used to live. When we follow the ways of this world and of the ruler of the kingdom of the air, it is a spirit who is still at work now in those who are disobedient to you. All of us who now stand with Christ also lived among these enemies of yours at one time, gratifying the cravings of our flesh and following his desires and thoughts. like all sinners we were by nature deserving of wrath but because of your great love for us Lord because you are rich in mercy you have made your people alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions. We acknowledge that it is by grace we have been saved and that you, God, raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms. You have revealed that you've done this for your elect in order that in the coming ages you might show the incomparable riches of your grace expressed in kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is only by grace that we have been saved through faith. A faith that is not of ourselves, but is your gift to us, God. We have not been saved by our works, so none of us can boast. We are your handiwork, O our Creator. Created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which you prepared in advance for us to do. Therefore, Father, help us to remember that you have established unity among us. No longer can there be a division between Christians who come from Gentile descendants or Jewish descendants. No longer a division between the physically uncircumcised and the physically circumcised. For all who follow Christ are now circumcised of the heart. Not by human hands, but by the Spirit of Christ. No longer do ethnic distinctions separate us from citizenship in Israel, the true spiritual Israel. No longer are those walking in the way the truth and the life counted as foreigners to the covenants of your promise. No longer are we without hope or without you God in the world. Now and forevermore we are in Christ Jesus no longer far away from you but we have been brought near by the blood of Christ. He himself is our peace. He himself has made us one group. He himself has destroyed the barrier, the dividing wall of hostility, by setting aside in his flesh the law with its commands and regulations. We exalt you for your purpose of creating in your Son one new glorified humanity out of the formerly competing factions, thus making peace, thus establishing one body. to reconcile all leaders to your name through the cross by which you put to death our hostilities your only begotten came and preached peace to sinners who were far away and peace even to those who were near for through our messiah we all have access to you father by one spirit we are humbled that we are no longer foreigners and strangers but fellow citizens with all your people lord a part of your kingdom built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets with Christ himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. In him we are being built together to become a dwelling in which you, God, live by your spirit. In him, Christ Jesus of Nazareth, we pray to you now. Amen. Hello, I'm so glad that you are here with me today and that you're taking the time to add to your ability to serve others. You've chosen to do something that will help you to be a little bit more like Jesus Christ. And I am confident that it is going to produce greater servanthood and greater Christ-likeness in you. You know, I'm praising God today for the fact that he made us with this ability that whatever we do we get a little bit stronger, we get a little bit smarter, that the more that we do it, it change... Did you notice that? It changes us so that we're different. And it's a pattern, it's a way that God made us that when we focus on something, whatever it is, we end up being totally different. So I heard this really phenomenal metaphor earlier today. I wanted to share it with you. It was a group of pastors that I was hanging out with and one of the pastors said, you know, when a master craftsman is working with an apprentice, The apprentice's job is to feed materials and tools to the master so that the master can do what he needs to do. And as the apprentice gets better and better at it, he begins to anticipate what it is that the master is going to need. Does he need more clay? Does he need more paint? Does he need this tool or that tool? He anticipates what it is that the master needs, and this is how he improves. Right? Makes sense. How is it that you are paying attention to somebody else, or even to Jesus Christ in your life, and anticipating what it is that he's gonna need to do his work? Or maybe there's somebody at work that you're trying to imitate, to learn from. Are you anticipating what they need? How are you learning to be more like them? And so, what is it that I'm thankful for today? I'm thankful for the fact that The more I do something, the more natural it becomes. I get better at it by the mere fact of practice. As long as the Lord is able to help me to be full of enough joy and strength to be faithful, the reality is that I get better at it. He's working inside of me. And so, thank you for being with me today. I think that you and I both are better as a result of taking this time together. So we'll see you soon. We'll see you next time. Before I share God's word with you, I have a friend here today with his family and I'm excited to have Pastor Troy and then Dana and Tyler come in to visit us. I would like to invite him to say a few words with us. Would you please? Thank you. I have known Pastor Neil for a few years, and you are truly blessed to have him as a pastor, it seems to me. I have been blessed to know him. First mistake he made, though, was inviting me to come up here and talk and say that I had more than 30 seconds. A couple of things that I would love to say to you as an encouragement to you. First of all, I love the name of this gathering of God's people, Covenant Family Chapel. I don't know if you spent much time focusing on what each of those words is all about and how it ties to the gospel, but covenant. We have a covenant-making God, going all the way back to Adam and Eve, reaffirmed with Noah and Abraham and David, and of course, finally in the person of Jesus Christ. the cover goes back with adam and eve when god said he would through the seat of the woman jesus christ to save us all who here besides me is a sinner saved and washed clean by the blood of jesus christ and family those who abide by the covenant who are washed clean by the blood of christ our family part of god's family co-heirs with christ sons of the king kings and queens ourselves in a sense. We should embrace that. And we do when we come together in this chapel. Chapel, a place where people gather for religious services, for worship, for prayer, for fellowship. we have a covenant-making God, a covenant that makes us all a family, we come together to meet in a place as a family honoring that covenant-making God in a place such as this that is a chapel. It is a beautiful name. I hope that you really appreciate the name that God has given you for this congregation. And the last thing, I can't help it, I was inspired by the passage that was shared earlier, and I want to drive home a point. In Isaiah 43, beginning with verse 8, What's going on here is God is telling us that he is being put on trial by the naysayers, those who are outside the covenant, challenging his authority. And God is saying in this passage that he's not even going to bother to show up for court because he's going to trust in his witnesses. Who are his witnesses? We are his witnesses. Let me read this with the tone that will help to drive that point home. Lead out those who have eyes but are blind, the Lord says. Who have ears but are deaf, the Lord says. All the nations gather together and the people assemble. There's some sarcasm going on here. Which of them foretold this and proclaimed to us these former things? point is none of them could proclaim in advance was gonna happen only God knows the future so then God says let them bring their witnesses to prove that they were right so that others may hear and say it is true as if they could you are my witnesses declares the Lord and my servant whom I have chosen so that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he God has entrusted his family, those with whom he has made a covenant to be witnesses to the world, to share the truth of the gospel of Jesus Christ, our King, Lord, and Savior. I fear that we don't take that responsibility as seriously as we might most of the time, so I'm here to encourage you and charge you with being obedient, to being good, faithful witnesses. We live in a lost world in need of hearing the truth. It's more than just an exuberant experience. It's more than just fellowship with other believers. It's knowing rock solid down in the core of your soul that you are a child of the Most High. And no one can take that away from you. I wanted to bring my wife up real quick, Dina, because the mission that's going on speaks to us and our family in a particular way. Good morning, how are you? Thank you for welcoming us to the family. As you can see, we have our son Tyler. He has autism and he's not demonic. I can tell you personally that the Lord has used him to speak to us. The Lord has used him to perform miraculous. He was born in liver failure and heart failure and God did a work. We're able to actually minister and share the gospel with a Muslim doctor. who hardened his heart, but the Lord still spoke truth to him. And when he was miraculously healed, this doctor turned to me and said, who do you pray to? And I said, I pray to Jesus. And he said, your Jesus healed your son. So we know, we trust that God is not done with our son, Tyler. and that he will perform the miraculous as witness to what he is, who he is, who he was, and who he continues to be, which is God above all. So praise him. Thank you. I praise God for strength. We are fearfully and wonderfully made. I praise God for that. Do you realize that we're so amazingly made? So just the other day an article came across the news that was just really interesting. It was describing that people that choose to serve others in the workplace are happier Now, this is something that we already know that the Bible has been teaching for a long time, where it says in 2 Corinthians 1, verse 24, that people work together for one another's joy. Paul is saying that I work together for your joy. This is a focus. that the Bible has taught us for years. And in fact, science is now proving that when we do it, this thing that God told us to do, that is the will of God, that we serve other people, that it actually means that we get more joy in return. makes sense. And the challenge then is to choose right now, in this part of my day, who is it that I'm going to try to serve right now? Who am I going to give myself to really serving with a lot of intensity, with all my heart, as it were. So again, I praise God that He has put people into my life that I can serve, that I get the opportunity to serve with everything that I have. Who has God put into your life? doing today. It's good to see you. We are regularly getting together like this to talk about what it is that God is doing in our lives so that we can be more like Christ, so that we can let His indwelling Spirit change us to be more like Him, to transform us by the renewing of our minds. And so I'm so glad that you are here again with us today. I want to thank God today for the amazing way that he changes how I interact with everybody in my life. Because of how I interact with him, there's a habit that forms in me about how I interact with everybody. And there's three key words that I think are a big part of how the Lord has taught me to interact with Him, about this habit that He's built in me, about how I relate to people, and how I interact with people. The first word is boldness, right? We're told that by the blood of Jesus Christ, we come boldly before the throne room of God, that we come into His throne room before the mercy seat with boldness. Boldness. Right? It's the idea of a young child that knows that his father loves him and runs to throw himself into his father's arms. There's a boldness that we come into the presence of God, that we don't come tentative or fearful, but that we come right before him and ask him for whatever we need. Now that's pretty huge. It changes how I interact with people. There's a measure of boldness, a humble boldness that I'm gonna be loved and accepted. The second big word is love. That's an obvious one. We love Jesus because he first loved us. We look at what Jesus did when he came and healed people and when he died on the cross for our sins, sacrificed himself for us. Where Proverbs says that greater love has no man than this, but that he laid down his life for his friends. And so love that God treats me that way and teaches me to love Him back. And the result is that it overflows in a generosity of willingness to serve sacrificially people around me and to not be stingy in my relationships with them. And the last thing is joy. Joy is super important. We're told that the joy of the Lord is our strength, that the joy of His salvation, this joy that we are not left just barely getting along, but that there is a victory that is in store for us, a triumph. that rises in our souls, that every day is the day that the Lord has made. Let us rejoice and be glad in it. So we rejoice even in our tribulations, even in our struggles. Why? Because what Christ has done for us has taught us that in all of our interactions with him, we can come with this incredible expectation and anticipation of things. So boldness and love and joy These three are terms that I recently read as descriptions of our relationship with God as I was reading a book written by John Stott, his book on the cross of Christ. So I wanna thank you. again for being with me today. I praise God that this habit of interacting with God is something that's overflowing into other parts of my life. So I'm changed. Just every time I interact with God it reinforces this boldness, this love, and this joy that even when I interact with people it just overflows. It's one way that God is making all of us to be more like Him. So thank you for being with me today. I look forward to seeing you again next time. God bless you. I hope you enjoyed that kind of a potpourri and what you heard there at the very beginning of this half hour. You heard the tail end of a message that had been preached at Coolsville Baptist Church, latter part of last year, talking about the culture of Christ's church being in crisis, focusing on Acts chapter 1 through chapter 7. And then you heard some snippets also from John Switzer. He's in the habit now at Crossroads Valley Church of providing some pastoral minutes or CBC minutes or something like that, they call it. I thought you'd enjoy a sampler of that. And then our good friend here at the radio station, good friend of mine, Neil Achempong, the pastor of Covenant Family Chapel, invited me. Well, actually, I stopped by to visit and worship with them, and he invited me to speak for a few minutes and my wife as well. And so you heard my wife, Bina, And I love you dearly. I want to thank you for listening to this show. I want to thank our sponsor, Putman Plumbing and Heating. How can we make you smile? In case you're wondering, I think I'm doing this a little bit blind. Normally I can listen to the show with headphones on. I could not find my headphones, so I'm doing this without headphones. So hopefully it's sounding okay. I have a feeling that it might sound a little hollow. I'm in an auxiliary studio as well, not in our normal studio, and so I feel like I'm in a bit of a tuna can. so over that sounding okay too it is what it is as they said next week i have over the years we've had some scheduling struggles and problems i have ended up having a bunch of audio that features me uh, sermons shared or like the pop-in I did at, uh, Neil A. Tempong's church where my wife and I both had a chance to speak briefly, things like that. This week was the first time I ever gave any bonus material about the things that Jon Schweitzer does, audio-wise, away from this show, and there's plenty more out there, so I'll try to find, uh, something, either one long thing or a few shorter things to give you kind of a spice of what John Schweitzer has going on and what his church is all about. And I'm sure that it will speak to you and give you some insight into what we're doing. So I'll let you enjoy the tail end of the theme music for the show, which by the way, if you're curious, it's an instrumental by the Rock and Roll Band, the pop band, mostly famous for their music back in the 80s, Journey. This is an instrumental track from their box set, Time 3. The song is titled With a Tear. So if you enjoy this, you can find it on your own journey with a tear. Until next week, God bless. Voila and Frederick, proudly supplying Frederick and surrounding areas with quality loose-leaf tea.