WEST LIBERTY CHRISTIAN FELLOWSHIP

“I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in His sufferings, becoming like Him in His death.”  Philippians 3:10

April 18, 2021

THE GOD WE WORSHIP

The Gospel of John

 

MESSAGE AND SCRIPTURES

The Spirit and Truth

John 14: 15-17, 25, 26

John 15: 26, 27

John 16: 5-15

 

WLCF VISION STATEMENT – To be a God centered, God loving, Holy Spirit filled, led and empowered Church, having Christ as the Head and we, as His Body, being used to make disciples of Jesus to build His Kingdom.

CHURCH COVENANT:

We covenant together with God and with one another in an ever-increasing relationship with God as follows: Lord God-Father, Son, and Holy Spirit we covenant with you and with each other… That we will seek to be kingdom people living as kingdom individuals in kingdom homes in a kingdom church.

BARUCH ATA YHWH SEBAOTH – Bless You. Praise You. Thank You Beloved LORD GOD.  We are thankful for our Treasurer, Glenna MacGowan and Financial Secretary, Barb Keele.

 

Weekly Dawn Prayer – Wed 7:00 a.m. Zoom

 

Daily Time Alone with God – for a daily devotion please follow the enclosed format. Please pray TAG every day.

 

Prayer Chain – Call or email Geri Owen 319-627-4858 or westlibertychristianfellowship@gmail.com

 

TODAY AT WLCF

9:00 a.m. Adult Sunday School (Zoom only)                10:30 a.m. Worship Service (On Site & Zoom)

6:30 p.m. CCS YA Bible Study – Luke (Zoom only)

 

THIS WEEK AT WLCF (All Studies on Zoom)

 

Bible Studies

Tuesday                               7:00 p.m.                          Spanish Bible Study – Mateo (Zoom)

Wednesday                      6:30 p.m.                  Youth Bible Study – Mark (Zoom)

                                   7:30 p.m.                  Adult Bible Study – The Good Fight (Zoom)

Saturday                             7:30 a.m.                          Men’s Bible Study – John (Zoom)

Sunday                                 9:00 a.m.                          Adult Sunday School (Zoom)

                                                10:30 a.m.                                      Worship Service (On site and Zoom) 

                                  5:00 p.m.                          CYG  (WLCF)  Final gathering

  6:30 p.m.                          CCS YA Bible Study – Luke (Zoom)

 

Birthdays

Monday, April 19, Jordan Mills

Tuesday, April 20, Courtney (Braun) Oaks

Thursday, April 22, Scott Harmon and Matt Owen

 

 

Onsight Services – MUST wear a mask, practice social distancing, follow entrance/exit signs, and sanitize.

 

 

 

UPCOMING EVENTS, SERVICES, AND ACTIVITIES

 

Sunday Worship Service is both On-Site and Zoom which started Sunday, March 28th.  Sunday School and Bible Studies will stay with Zoom only, until further notice.

 

Zoom –You will need to download the app on your phone or computer. The code for ALL videos is 228 893 6865.  The password is 416991. Join us!

 

National Day of Prayer: Thursday, May 6, 2021.  Due to COVID we will host three different prayer times via ZOOM. The times will be 7:00 am, Noon, and 6:00 pm.  We will be praying for our NATION, GOVERNMENT, MILITARY, SCHOOLS, ENTERTAINMENT/SPORTS, FAMILY, CHILDREN, COMMUNITY, and CHURCH. (If you are unable to join us please pray for the above groups on your own).

 

 

 

ONGOING EVENTS, SERVICES, AND ACTIVITIES

 

Baptism – If you are interested in following Jesus in the Waters of Believer’s Baptism please see Pastor Mario.

 

West Liberty Food Pantry – Is open at FCU Saturdays 9:00 – 10:00 a.m. and Thursdays 6:00 – 7:00 p.m.

We encourage each family to bring one food item or personal care item to church with you each Sunday as a donation to the Food Pantry. Please place this item at the base of the cross.  Thank you. Thanks to the men who deliver these items to FCU.  Julie McKillip is our coordinator.

 

Church library – You are invited to check out the books from the library downstairs.

 

Copy of the Message or Bulletin – Visit our website: www.wlcf.org  (an audio version is included) or contact Brad J.

 

OUR GIVING TO THE LORD’S WORK: Offering Box – back table

Giving in April, $2,340, $2,837.  We are $106 ahead of budget!  We need a monthly offering of $7,736 and a weekly offering of $1,785. BARUCH ATA YHWH SEBAOTH for the giving of YOUR people through the years. God loves a cheerful giver. Checks can be mailed to the church or dropped off at the church, in the mailbox at the end of the lane.

 

 

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WLCF YOUTH MINISTRY

WLCF Youth Group for young people in 6th – 12th grades

Ministries

Worship Service:                 Sundays at 10:00 a.m.

Youth Night:                          Wednesdays at 6:30 p.m. Studying the Gospel of Mark with Pastor Mario

 

Activities and Events                                                     Organization

Youth Team:                Daniel Zeman, Josh Zeman, Jacob Zeman

Parent Team:                Lisa Perdue and Lynne Zeman

Adult Helpers:

 

Lynne and Lisa will help coordinate parents, adult helpers, and any other adults who would help serve with transportation, food planning or helping as needed.  Let them know when available and willing to help serve our youth ministry.

 

COMMUNITY YOUTH GROUP (CYG)

If you are interested in serving this ministry in any way, let Pastor Mario know. We need one board member and several cube leaders.  The group meets at First Church United (FCU)

 

-          Sunday, Apr 18                Regular CYG – Decaying Corpse or Resurrected Lord                5:00 p.m.                                WLCF

(Last CYG – Outdoors with Weiner Roast/Games)

 

 

 

PINE LAKE CAMPS

Pray for PLCC, the staff and ministry: Mary Jo Litwiller

 

TIME ALONE WITH GOD (TAG)

Sunday readings: April 18, 2021

 

     There are vistas of truth which the disciples could not grasp prior to the cross and the exaltation, but the Spirit of truth would guide them into “all the truth.” (The Greek has an article before truth; Jesus did not mean that the Spirit would necessarily guide his followers into any and every kind of truth but the truth as it is in Jesus’ person, his work and his words.) The Spirit has bound himself to the teachings of Jesus. And when Jesus says the Spirit will “declare… the things that are to come,” he does not mean that the Sprit will give Christ’s followers a blueprint of future events. The meaning is rather that the Spirit will lead Christ’s followers into the deeper significance of the cross and the resurrection, which from Jesus’ standpoint were still future events. Without the Spirit’s illumination Christ’s death would have been utter tragedy; under the Spirit’s guidance, however, Jesus’ followers saw in it the victory of God.

     What the free Spirit of God has to reveal to the Church is therefore not new revelations, new doctrines, new promises, which go beyond things that Jesus himself said or even complement and add to them. It is not said of the Spirit that he will lead the Church into new truth, but into all truth…Jesus is followed by no new revealer; in him, once for all, the revelation of God is given to the world. This revelation is inexhaustible. But the new insights bestowed on the Church by the Spirit do not add to or surpass what Christ himself revealed…The Spirit cannot say more than Jesus…The Spirit cannot give a new revelation, but through the preaching of his witnesses he will cause everything that Jesus said and did to be revealed in a new light.

     The Spirit’s work will be totally Christocentric. He will glorify Christ by taking the things of Christ and declaring them to his disciples. Just as Jesus glorified the Father by revealing him to people, the Paraclete glorifies Jesus by revealing him to people.

David Ewert, The Holy Spirit In the New Testament, p. 82 (1983)

 

SUPPLEMENTAL READINGS

The Gospel of John – The Spirit and Truth

John 16: 5-15

 

     First of all, it is commonly understood that the Scriptures depend upon the Holy Spirit for their efficacy in guidance as well as redemption. A recent conference of evangelical scholars affirms “that the Holy Spirit who inspired scripture acts through it today to work faith in its message,” and “that the Holy Spirit enables believers to appropriate and apply scripture to their lives.” It is likewise denied “that the natural man is able to discern spiritually the biblical message apart from the Holy Spirit.”  Many people commonly regarded as in the evangelical tradition seem prepared to make even stronger statements on the role of the Holy Spirit in Bible study. Consider again William Law:

     Without the present illumination of the Holy Spirit, the Word of God must remain a dead letter to every man, no matter how intelligent or well-educated he may be… It is just as essential for the Holy Spirit to reveal the truth of Scripture to the reader today as it was necessary for Him to inspire the writers thereof in their day…Therefore to say that because we now have all the writings of Scripture complete we no longer need the miraculous inspiration of the Spirit among men as in former days, is a degree of blindness as great as any that can be charged upon the scribes and Pharisees. Nor can we possibly escape their same errors; for in denying the present inspiration of the Holy Spirit, we have made Scripture the province of the letter-learned scribe.

Dallas Willard, In Search of Guidance, p. 197f, (1984).

         The work of the Spirit is Christocentric. He will draw attention not to Himself but to Christ. He will glorify Christ. It is the things of Christ that He takes and declares, i.e. His ministry is built upon and is the necessary sequel to that of Christ.  There is no division in the Godhead. What the Father has the Son has. It is because of the community between the Father and Himself that Jesus can speak in the way He has just done. Just as the Spirit is concerned to set forward the things of Christ so is He concerned to set forward the things of the Father.

Leon Morris, The Gospel According to John, p. 701 (1971).

 

     Christ is “the way” by which men are led to “the truth.” By Him we go to Him. The Spirit “guides” men who follow His leading; He does not “tell” His message without effort on their part. He also guides them “into the Truth,” which is the domain upon which they enter, and not something to be gazed upon from afar.

B.F. Westcott, The Gospel According to St. John, p. 230 (1881).

 

     Without the Spirit of Christ a man cannot begin to be a Christian at all. It is the Spirit who makes him a son of God and who assures him of the reality of that sonship. For the Christian man the Spirit must be the law of his life, his director, the standard by which he judges all things, the person whose gifts he most of all desires. The Spirit brings him certain great gifts. The Spirit brings him liberation from the law of sin and death. The man into whose life the Spirit has come is the man set free. The Spirit brings him peace. The Spirit brings him victory in the warfare of the soul. The Spirit brings him life. His mortal body becomes alive with the life of Christ. The non-Christian man without Christ and the Holy Spirit may be said to exist; he cannot be said to live. The Spirit brings him power and enables him to put to death the deeds of the body. The peace which the Spirit brings is the peace of conquest.  It may be said that for Paul the spirit of a man is the indwelling power of God in that man, or, to put it in another way, it is the risen Christ resident within him. The spirit of a man is that part of a man which has kinship with God, and which therefore gives a man fellowship with God and power to win the victory in the warfare of the soul.

William Barclay, Flesh and Spirit, p. 16 (1962).

 

THE DISPLACED MEMBER OF THE GODHEAD “In most Christian churches the Spirit is entirely overlooked. Whether He is present or absent makes no real difference to anyone.

J. Oswald Sanders, The Holy Spirit and His Gifts, p. 10 (1940).

 

     In recent years the Lord of the church has fanned smoldering embers and lighted new fires in many fireplaces. Spiritual renewal has appeared in a variety of forms. The most significant, in terms of its beginning, its movement across denominational boundaries and its continuing growth, is the charismatic renewal. Like others in the history of the church, it has arrived in a shape as unexpected as it was unplanned, and as controversial as it is powerful. No wonder it stirs reactions ranging from enthusiastic welcome to perplexity to violent rejection.

Charles E. Hummel, Fire In The Fireplace, p. 16 (1978).

 

NOTES: