-Transcript-
00:38 Amen. Welcome to the cafe. Welcome to the program.
00:43 Thank you for joining me. Pastor Clark Covington here. Another message for you.
00:48 A little bit of a unconventional message today. Today I’m giving my testimony as a young adult and an adult. Last episode I spoke about my experience growing up and really was a lack of God experience and gives a testimony as to why turning to God is so important in our youth.
01:02 But here today we’re talking about a kind of a more recent testimony here. And the reason why I’m sharing this is twofold. One, I pray over every message and the Lord had convicted all my heart to do this.
01:18 And secondly, I think that as you know once I believe the Lord’s calling me to do this I start thinking about why. And I believe it’s important number one as you listen to the program if you’re a daily listener if you just listen here or there if it’s the first time it’s important to know who is behind the microphone who is preaching to you. And secondly, it’s important I believe to show what God will do in the life of those that trust him.
01:41 And I think it’s very important and I’m happy to share testimony. It’s it’s a joy for me to do it. Amen.
01:47 So I thank you for tuning in. I thank you for listening. And now let’s get to it.
01:52 So I thought of a caterpillar. My kids are young. They look at caterpillars.
01:57 They see a butterfly. They’re trying to figure out how one becomes the other. We read a book recently in homeschool about monarch butterflies and went outside to try to find them and so forth.
02:06 And you look at that caterpillar and you say wow that’s a whole lot of progression to get to a butterfly. Because the caterpillar doesn’t look anything like a butterfly. And when I was in college you know I I was becoming a young man.
02:21 I was no longer a kid and a lot of indiscretions I had when I was younger. You chalk up as being kind of a rebellious or you know wild kid. And you get in college you know it’s okay now you’re getting a little bit older.
02:36 And as I went through school I stayed in the bad ways in the party scene. I was not saved amen. And I just had this hollowness and this emptiness.
02:47 And I can remember vividly some occasions of just kind of almost like getting outside of myself for a minute being like what is going on? What is the point of all this?
02:54 You know because in school they’re telling you have a major right? You major in something you get out get a good job and everything is great right? That’s the kind of the narrative going into college and that’s why you’re gonna spend so much money on it and so forth.
03:06 And by the way recent college graduates I’ve seen a few of them in our family or in our church and they have not had that experience. They get out of school they can’t find a job and they end up working in retail or something.
03:18 They’re not happy and it’s very hard you know. Okay welcome to life right? But in my situation even though I wasn’t in I wasn’t saved yet I felt like I needed to go to church. And so I started kind of flirting with that idea and around that time my dad almost died of a complications atriculitis or something and something could rupture.
03:44 I’m not not exactly sure what it was but it was very serious and he almost died. And so he people at his work had been praying for him so he went and he got saved amen and he started going to church and that kind of lit a fire under me saying okay well now dad’s going I really need to start looking into this.
03:59 And so I started going to the First Baptist Church of Delaware Ohio because I went to Ohio Wesleyan a small school there outside of Columbus Ohio.
04:09 And it was a tiny little church but I didn’t know any better. I hadn’t really been to any churches as a quote-unquote adult so I didn’t know any better. But it’s a tiny little church and a pastor Tim Chesser was there and he would preach and I you know I wasn’t getting all the message but but I got the importance of being there.
04:30 And so by the way young people even if you don’t always understand what the preacher is preaching just show up be there and start soaking it in amen. And I mean that because I have very fond memories of being there. The same day I graduated college they had a ceremony at church for me they gave me a certificate even though I wasn’t a member.
04:42 And that pastor put his hand on my back and he told me the Lord had plans for me. And that’s just awesome because at that time I wasn’t even saved amen at that time I was living in the world at that time I was searching for significance. And oh how that pastor encouraged me he’s a great man of God he’s he’s retired now but he the Lord really used him to encourage me and I thank God for that man.
05:06 And I go off go to try get an office job and I hated it I lasted a few weeks okay I’ll go to graduate school for speech communications because why not didn’t want to sit in an office so I go back to school and many years still out in the world I get saved at a big Baptist Church
05:24 I’m still out in the world and I’m trying to reconcile this life I’ll never forget this we were out to lunch at Groucho’s if you ever been to Columbia South Carolina you know Groucho’s the fantastic restaurant I miss it so much I think they have one in Rock Hill but you know maybe
05:40 I’ll convince my wife to go out there but we’re sitting at Groucho’s after a message and I was looking at some of my roommates I think my dad was there at the time and I was wondering you know if what the preacher was saying is true that we need to be living biblically
05:53 and what the world is telling us is to live very unbiblically right and at the time I was trying to kind of reconcile the two because if in fact the pastor was correct then my life would have to radically change I would have to cut out so much of the way that I was living the way that I was the words that I was using the people I was hanging out with the things
06:17 that I was doing the things the goals I was chasing after all of these things were completely yoked up in the world and I didn’t understand a biblical idea of like the pervert the father of lies the devil and what he does and how this is he’s the prince of the power of the air
06:33 and this is you know all of this has happened ever since sin entered the world I didn’t understand a lot of these concepts but I understood enough to know that to be in the world was not to be godly and to be godly was to not be you know in the world
06:43 and so that laid the foundation there for me to really get to a breaking point as a business struggled and relationship struggled and I end up meeting my wife really at a very low point in my life and my wife was just a glimmer of hope amen and
07:01 and she you know she had grown up more in the fundamental church and she started taking me to visit a fundamental church and the Lord’s laughing because the Lord had me to film because I had a camera
07:13 and I was trying to learn more video stuff so I told the preacher or my wife told the preacher Oh Clark will film everything okay so I started filming everything well guess what happens when you film everything this is when that caterpillar starts to kind of get in that cocoon and the wings start to grow
07:26 and so forth when you film everything you’re taking in God’s Word and I’m filming this you know these revival meetings you know five six seven days a week I’m filming you know for a season you know when they would do those I’m filming guest preaching I’m filming the Sunday morning
07:39 then I’m filming Sunday night and I’m just there I’m there I’m there I’m just soaking it all up and eventually you know God’s Word just got a hold of my heart and I went from filming to doing more the bus ministry
07:51 and from the bus ministry to being a deacon and from a deacon to being a youth preacher even though I was in my 30s was still youth preacher and from a youth preacher it’s the Lord calling me to plant a church and that’s when the wings start to spread
08:03 and a butterfly is flying and and and God is having his way and godly living has taken place and you know I’m getting my kids out of the public school amen as best I can for our little ones we’re having a Proverbs a family altar every night
08:16 where we’re doing things but it wasn’t immediate it was a process and so the point I’m making here today is maybe you’re in a situation somewhere in that process where you’ve recognized that the modern church the the watered-down gospel
08:30 the idea that somehow church is supposed to make us like happy and life easy isn’t true and that the idea that Christ died for so much more than that and that we are saved by the blood of Jesus
08:43 and that we are to bear our crosses and that we are to be set apart that we are to live for him that we are to believe the Bible as true from cover to cover that we are to seek the Lord and pray
08:51 that we prayer we are to pray without seeking that we are to study to show ourselves approved you know maybe that some of these things are glimmering in the light they’re starting to shine out to you my encouragement for you
09:03 today my testimony today is follow that path follow that narrow path don’t get yoked up in the ways of this world or the things of this world if something looks very worldly
09:12 and smells very worldly I’ve got news for you it’s very worldly but if it’s of the world it’s not of the Father the Bible says the those that are not for me or against me amen we understand that it is a remnant a small group that will truly follow the Lord
09:28 that will truly live for the Lord we understand that we’re saved by grace alone through faith alone and Jesus Christ alone but that when we say we’re making him Lord of our life that that is a commitment that we should keep
09:36 and that we should make him Lord of our life that we should forsake the idols in our life that we should forsake the sinful things that we should hate what
09:44 God hates and if God hates sin and sin being anything that is not right with God that is not holy if God hates that then we should hate that and if we hate that then we shouldn’t do it amen
09:54 so if God hates lying we shouldn’t lie if God hates pornography we shouldn’t go near it if God hates fornication we shouldn’t engage in it if God hates drunkenness
10:03 we shouldn’t go near it if God hates lewdness we shouldn’t go near it if God hates violence we shouldn’t go near it if something is blaspheming God get rid of it get rid of it
10:12 there was a movie like a superhero movie on in a hotel room we were staying at a couple years ago in Florence South Carolina on the way to the beach or something
10:23 and they just blaspheme God in the middle of the movie it’s a movie for kids and they just blaspheme God and I about fell over you know you’re gonna watch that and then go to church and say okay I’m good I’m cool no you’re not cool and that’s not good and you need to get rid of it okay
10:34 you need to get rid of it not for you know my sake or anyone else’s sake but because we should love the Lord and so my testimony today is that it is a process to grow in the Lord
10:46 that it doesn’t happen overnight and that we need to be obedient to the Lord in my case even though I got involved in the ministry even before I moved to North Carolina
10:55 I got involved in the ministry really at first probably in 2009 2010 somewhere in that area just helping a local individual a local pastor start a church it was like getting started and needed some help
11:11 and I was involved in that so from that time and say 2010 it was many years until I was you know at the point where I was preaching right three four or five years
11:26 and since then we’re just celebrating now this is our second year in the radio ministry this is the third year of our church plant and this is maybe my sixth or seventh year of preaching so there was many years where I wasn’t doing that
11:41 because God was molding me and shaping me and so I want to encourage those that are listening today to trust the Lord maybe you want to be an evangelist
11:49 and you you’re not there yet maybe the Lord wants to send you overseas and it seems like it’s very distant or very difficult to do maybe you’re wondering if the Lord’s calling you into the music ministry or the teaching ministry or the bus ministry
12:00 or he’s calling you to work for a nonprofit or get involved in in any other kind of facet of the church my encouragement is to get involved to be patient to wait on the Lord and be obedient to God
12:16 and as that obedience comes through what you’ll see as you live that out as you live your faith out James says faith that works is dead as you live that faith out then you’re going to have a wonderful relationship and fellowship with God even if God maybe God’s calling you to be an accountant for the church or to be the treasurer
12:35 and you could do that just say I’m not you know the greatest with numbers I don’t have a ton of time but just be obedient and do it and then see what doors God opens for you and that’s how I’ve gotten here today and it has been the best season of my life serving God
12:51 and the only regret I have is not turning to him sooner but I can’t change the past amen and God has a plan I believe God can use a testimony like this to inspire others
13:03 and so that’s why I’ve shared this with you today to let you know that I’m just a person like you amen and that I love the Lord and that I do my best to serve the Lord but when I’m up here preaching about departing from sin
13:11 it’s not that I don’t know about sin I know it all too well amen and so when I’m up here preaching about that or about these other principles in the Bible many of them I have lived
13:21 and I’ve seen the the pain and suffering that comes from living in this world and I am compelled by the Word of God to share with you the truth of God because
13:31 I’ve seen the plain joy the wonderful joy in the Lord with fellowship with the brethren with serving God with prayer time with the peace that surpasses all understanding
13:42 and that is so important in this day and age to be bold for Christ and we will the irony is it looks like sacrifice and maybe it is a little bit but the irony is we’ll be happier doing this than anything else
13:53 and so that’s the irony of serving God you serve him out of obedience and love and it looks very hard and challenging and in the end you have a peace that surpasses all understanding and you have a blessing from God that you can’t even explain or describe that’s our God
14:07 he is wonderful he is worthy turn to him today I thank you so much for listening tune in next time as we get back to studying the Word of God take care God bless and amen.