From Faith to Faith, Strength to Strength, Glory to Glory, Part 2 — Making the Valley of Baca a Well

Faith to faith strength to strength, then glory to glory: in this second message of the series, the pastor shows that the journey runs straight through trials. Faith grows as you keep hearing and doing the Word. Strength grows as you keep pressing in with God’s people through dry seasons, which he calls the Valley of Baca. And glory shows up on the other side, not because you performed perfectly, but because you kept doing what God said until He showed up. The message builds on the previous one, From Faith to Faith: The Power of Worship & Praise for Victory, and opens the door to a study of the Book of James.

Below you will find the full video, a summary of the sermon, the Scripture behind each point (NKJV on Bible Gateway), a timestamped outline, and practical steps for this week.

Sermon at a Glance

This message was preached at NTC Ministries and posted on April 4, 2023. It runs about 63 minutes. The pastor explains that several teachings have grown out of an earlier series on becoming worshipers, and he spends the first part reviewing the difference between praise and worship before moving into the three stages in the series title.

He is laying groundwork for the Book of James, aiming to show that grace and effort are not enemies.

From Praise to Worship: Knowing God’s Ways

Praise, the pastor says, acknowledges God for what He does, has done and will do. We enter His gates with thanksgiving and His courts with praise (Psalm 100:4). According to Psalm 8:2, praise silences the enemy and the avenger, so it is really for our sake. The word is also translated strength, which is why he tells the church: if you want to be a strong Christian, be a praiser, not a critic, and build people up.

Praise can be exuberant. God rides on the heavens by His name YAH (Psalm 68:4), which the pastor teaches carries the sense of being gloriously wild before Him, and He rejoices over His people with singing (Zephaniah 3:17). But worship acknowledges who God is. In worship we become still, ponder Him and let Him speak.

Moses is the model. While the tribes camped around the tabernacle, he pitched a tent far outside the camp and called it the tent of meeting (Exodus 33:7–11). Anyone could use it, but he did. That is why God made known His ways to Moses, His acts to the children of Israel (Psalm 103:7). Israel kept asking God for things and He kept providing, but Moses knew Him, and became the meekest, most teachable man on earth.

The pastor reviews the progression from part one. The fruit of worship is revelation. The fruit of revelation is intimacy. The fruit of intimacy is the conception and birth of God’s will in your life. Worshipers know who He is and let Him work in and through them. Jesus spoke of the Father again and again, he notes: it is the Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom (Luke 12:32).

Breaking Free From Performance

Because the series is heading into James, the pastor addresses the law. He describes the 613 commandments as a heavy burden of perfect performance. God never wanted sacrifices for their own sake, he says. What He desired was a broken spirit and a contrite heart (Psalm 51:16–17). If God had wanted law, he asks, would He not have given it to Adam in the garden?

Adam never had to ask God for anything. God saw his need, created Eve and presented her to him (Genesis 2:23–24). When relationships are not pursuing who God is, that performance mindset gets turned on each other: you never do this right, you always say that. Nobody can live under that.

The first law broken after the commandments was a man gathering sticks on the Sabbath, and he was put to death (Numbers 15:32–36). Yet even born-again people can carry legalism into the church, saying the devil is after them when they struggle, but asking others what they did wrong. We are saved by grace through faith (Ephesians 2:8), not by faith plus law.

Moses asked to see God’s face and was told no one can see it and live (Exodus 33:18–20), yet later God tells His people to seek His face. The pastor resolves it this way: what dies is everything in us that cannot be one with Him. The righteous may fall seven times, but they get back up (Proverbs 24:16). His definition of faith is simple: “Faith is just doing what God tells you to do until He shows up.”

Faith to Faith Strength to Strength: Roots in Winter

The journey of faith to faith strength to strength starts with a new heart. When we are born again, God takes out the stony heart and gives a new one (Ezekiel 36:26). Like Paul, we put away childish things (1 Corinthians 13:11). The new heart can receive the seed of the Word, but life in a corrupted world is still a struggle.

The first stage, faith to faith, comes from Romans 1:16–18: in the gospel the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith. The pastor notes that wrath is revealed against those who hold the truth but do not act on it. Faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God (Romans 10:17), again and again. So he urges the church to read the Bible every day. You make time to go to work because it matters; this matters more.

In 42 years of ministry, he has watched people start on fire and grow cold. Growing from faith to faith means righteousness keeps being revealed, so we get better, not worse. He admits there have been stretches, even as a minister, where he did not seem to be growing and revelation felt quiet.

That does not mean God is displeased. His apple trees produce nothing in winter, but that is when the roots grow deep where no one can see. Without those hidden roots, the tree could never grow bigger above the ground. When spring comes and people marvel at the growth, he says, they did not see what you went through before it.

Then he turns to James 1:21–22. Lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness, and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls; and be doers of the word, not hearers only. He describes that wickedness as a whirlpool of ugliness. Stop, look away from it, set your mind on things above (Colossians 3:2), and let God transform you (Romans 12:1–2).

The Valley of Baca: Making It a Well

James, the half-brother of Jesus known as James the Just, wrote in harmony with Paul, the pastor says. But Martin Luther, after years under a system of works, discovered that the just shall live by faith, and when he later read James he called it an epistle of straw. The pastor sees the same reaction today: people delivered from legalism assume there is no work involved at all. Paul answers that: do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good (Romans 12:21). Evil spreads when people do nothing.

In the pastor’s teaching on faith to faith strength to strength, the second stage is given in the assembly of the saints. We need each other to encourage us and keep us applying ourselves. A child left to himself brings his mother shame (Proverbs 29:15), and everyone needs to be accountable somewhere. Find a prayer partner, he says, and let them speak into your life.

The key passage is Psalm 84:4–7. Blessed are those who dwell in Your house; they will still be praising You. Blessed is the man whose strength is in You. As they pass through the Valley of Baca, they make it a spring, and the rain also covers it with pools. They go from strength to strength; each one appears before God in Zion.

The Valley of Baca, he teaches, is the valley of weeping. Believers go through dry, hard places, yet they bring rain that fills the pools. He tells of seasons when fresh revelation felt absent and he did not want to come and preach. He did it anyway. Married 50 years, he jokes that there were a minute or two when he did not want to be married anymore. That is patience: you keep applying yourself in the Valley of Baca even when it is not the best of times.

He quotes Adam Clarke’s commentary: while God’s followers pass through the wilderness of this world, He opens fountains in the wilderness and springs in dry places. We do not make the well; God does. We stick close to Him. Even “precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of His saints” (Psalm 116:15) he applies to everything in us that is not good for a marriage, parenting or our walk with God dying off.

Count It All Joy: Let Patience Furnish the House

Jesus said that in this world you will have tribulation, but be of good cheer, for He has overcome the world (John 16:33). Sometimes, the pastor says, God seems to hide, not to abandon you but so your roots stretch deeper. Herb roots could never hold up a 50-foot oak. Roots hold a tree upright, which is why the Old Testament speaks of the upright and the New Testament of the righteous.

Abiding in the Word, he teaches, is like the 49ers staking a gold claim: once you have found something valuable, thieves come to take it, and you have to fight to hold it. When he committed his life to the Lord, problems came immediately, because Satan comes to steal the word that is sown (Mark 4:15).

That leads to James 1:2–4: count it all joy when you fall into various trials, knowing that the testing of your faith produces patience. Let patience have its perfect work, that you may be perfect and complete, lacking nothing. He shares the story of the first house he and his wife bought. They had no furniture, only his camping hammock, which they hung between two eye bolts. After much laughter they finally got in, and one bolt pulled out of the wall. They had a home, but it was not furnished. Patience furnishes the house, and every trial is where patience does its work.

Reading The Message, he lingers on one line about not trying to get out of anything prematurely. Patience was hard for him, and harder for his wife, who would ask why he did not defend himself. His confession is that he has the patience of eternity, because the Eternal One lives in him. Under pressure, he says, the faith you really have comes into the open, and sometimes it is ugly. That is why he wants to give others grace and encouragement rather than condemnation.

Peter adds that though you are grieved for a little while by trials, the genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold tested by fire, will be found to praise, honor and glory at the revelation of Jesus Christ (1 Peter 1:6–8). God uses the corruption of this world to our advantage. The Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptations (2 Peter 2:9).

Glory to Glory: Faith That Works

The pastor tells of a hard season when his ministry faced opposition and investigation at the same time. He kept sharing the gospel, unashamed, and, he says, investigators found nothing against him. But the battle was won first in faith to faith, then strength to strength, and then the glory came. You cannot have glory without the patience in between, which is why faith to faith strength to strength comes before glory.

He warns about prophecy, too. People want a word, and as soon as they receive one, everything seems to fall apart. That is the Valley of Baca, and patience makes it a well. “Unless you’re willing to go from strength to strength, you’ll never see glory.” Blessed is the man who endures temptation, for when he has been approved he will receive the crown of life (James 1:12). The path of the just shines brighter and brighter unto the perfect day (Proverbs 4:18).

Before he moved to Merrill, he worked at a company that made garbage trucks. He came in early, left late and tried to be a builder among his coworkers, and he prophesied that the company would have three years of back orders and need three shifts. About three years later, the company president called him to say it had all come to pass, and that he had given his life to the Lord because of it. It was not easy, the pastor says, but he did what God asked.

Faith without works is dead, and James says, I will show you my faith by my works (James 2:17–18). Jesus said to go into the highways and hedges and compel them to come in (Luke 14:23). He raised his children to do whatever their hands found to do with all their might (Ecclesiastes 9:10). The church, he says, needs to start building, and to carry faith to faith strength to strength into the community.

Living It Out: Growing Through Trials This Week

The pastor closes by praying that the church will not do things perfectly, but will start, confident that the One who began a good work will complete it (Philippians 1:6). Here are practical steps from this message:

• Make time for the Word daily. You make time for work because it matters; faith comes by hearing the Word again and again.
• Be a praiser, not a critic. Praise is strength, so build up the people around you instead of tearing them down.
• Find a prayer partner. Strength to strength comes in the assembly, so let someone speak into your life.
• Stay put in the Valley of Baca. When revelation feels quiet, keep doing what God last told you; roots are growing.
• Do not exit early. Let patience run its full course in every trial instead of defending yourself or escaping prematurely.
• Act on a word you have neglected. Stir up a prophecy or Scripture God gave you and start doing something about it.

Timestamped Outline

• 0:00 Praise acknowledges what God does
• 1:11 Worship acknowledges who God is; Moses’ tent
• 3:25 Israel knew His acts, Moses His ways
• 6:25 Revelation, intimacy and the will of God
• 8:31 Preparing for James: the burden of the law
• 10:42 Adam, Eve and the performance trap
• 13:07 Seeing God’s face; what dies in us
• 15:23 Faith is doing what God says until He shows up
• 17:33 A new heart and putting away childish things
• 18:53 Faith to faith: Romans 1:16–18
• 21:26 Faith comes by hearing
• 24:58 Roots grow in winter
• 26:05 James 1:21–22: lay aside and receive
• 28:50 Martin Luther and the Book of James
• 32:33 Strength in the assembly of the saints
• 33:47 Psalm 84 and the Valley of Baca
• 37:24 They go from strength to strength
• 42:15 Upright roots and abiding in the Word
• 44:42 Count it all joy; the unfurnished house
• 47:44 Faith forced into the open
• 50:09 1 Peter 1:6–8: faith tested by fire
• 55:24 Prophecy and steadfastness; James 1:12
• 57:43 The garbage truck company prophecy
• 1:01:43 Build the kingdom; closing prayer

From Faith to Faith Series

This message is part of a teaching series at NTC Ministries. Go back to the previous message or continue with the next:

• Previous: From Faith to Faith, Strength to Strength, Glory to Glory: Becoming Worshipers
• You are here: From Faith to Faith, Strength to Strength, Glory to Glory, Part 2 — Making the Valley of Baca a Well
• Next: From Faith to Faith, Strength to Strength, Glory to Glory #6 — Tilling Up the Fallow Ground

Frequently Asked Questions

Does a dry season mean God is displeased with me?

No. The pastor says there have been periods, even as a minister, when revelation felt quiet and he did not seem to be growing. He compares it to winter, when his apple trees bear nothing but their roots grow deep underground. Those hidden roots are what make the next season of visible growth possible. His counsel is to keep pressing in and doing what God last told you until spring comes.

Why did Martin Luther dislike the Book of James?

The pastor explains that Luther had lived under a system of works and found freedom when he read that the just shall live by faith. When he then read James, with its emphasis on works, he called it an epistle of straw. The pastor’s point is that people newly freed from legalism often swing to thinking no effort is involved, while James and Paul agree that real faith acts.

Why does the pastor say not to defend yourself?

He draws it from James 1:2–4 in The Message: do not try to get out of anything prematurely. Trials reveal and mature your faith, and rushing to escape or justify yourself cuts that process short. His personal confession is that he has the patience of eternity because the Eternal One lives in him, so he lets trials run their course and leaves vindication with God.

Scripture References

All passages open in the New King James Version on Bible Gateway:

• Psalm 84:4–7 — from strength to strength through the Valley of Baca
• Romans 1:16–18 — righteousness revealed from faith to faith
• Romans 10:17 — faith comes by hearing
• James 1:2–4 — count it all joy
• James 1:21–22 — the implanted word; doers, not hearers only
• James 1:12 — the crown of life
• 1 Peter 1:6–8 — faith tested by fire
• Psalm 103:7 — His ways to Moses, His acts to Israel
• James 2:17–18 — faith shown by works

How this summary was made: written with AI assistance from the sermon’s own transcript and checked against the Scriptures listed above.

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