Mature & Mighty in Christ (Message Only)

we not only lift up kevin's family in prayer but all those families that have lost loved ones over the weeks and months that have passed including we know uh st john blondell alan and helena's husband uh our son passed away and then two weeks later her husband allen uh surprisingly passed away as well so we just lift up all of you who might be grieving the loss of your loved ones even as we grieve them with you and now lord as we go into your message we pray that your message would go into us in jesus name amen and amen for christ's sake grow up as a church we enter into our 30th year anniversary we can no longer be called a church plant we are a bona fide adult church and the number 30 is quite significant when you think about it by 30 you should know what you want to do in life by 30 you should truly know what you don't want to do in life young people think about marriage kids family and squarely by the time they're 30 they're thinking really about do i want kids or do i really want to get married that whole idea of passing 30 almost moves you into another level of adulthood the age 30 is truly an age of adulthood and then in your 20s you kind of can get away with stuff and you tend to try to figure stuff out and with regard to relationships and schooling and etc in your 20s you can dabble in all kinds of experimentation and and get away with it in your 20s you're still on your parents insurance until 26 at least by the time you're 25 guess what you get to do you get to actually rent a car but 30 is that age where you truly need to be doing something that they call adulting you ever heard of adulting that's that process of truly growing up and realizing you can't just be a child anymore 30 is a significant number in the bible as well did you know that at age 30 joseph became the prime minister of egypt you'll find that in genesis 41 verse 46 at age 30 saul was anointed the first king of israel first samuel 13 1. at age 30 david began to reign over israel ii samuel 5 4. at age 30 aaronic priests meaning priests from the line of aaron were initially dedicated to officially service priests numbers chapter 4 verse 3. at age 30 john the baptist from the lineage of aaron became began his ministry and all of us probably know that at age 30 jesus was baptized and publicly started his ministry as he stepped out to preach the gospel luke chapter 3 verse 23 you may or may not know this but in 30 a.d the new testament church was born in jerusalem on the day of pentecost where 3 000 people received the gospel repented and were baptized acts chapter 2 verse 41 adulting this is a year in our church where i want us to focus on growing up in our faith it is our call it is our assignment to begin adulting as a church remember the body of christ is not a building and it's not four walls it's you the body of christ in other words you are the church we are the church and we must be adulting in our faith do you know what the christian word for adulting is maturity paul said it like this in first corinthians 13 11 when i was a child i talked like a child i thought like a child i reasoned like a child when i became a man i put childish ways behind me first corinthians 13 11 bridgeway it's time to grow up it's time to mature in our faith last year's theme followers of christ united in the spirit came out of ephesians 4 verse 3 which says maintain the unity of the spirit through the bond of peace and as we continue in that chapter ephesians chapter 4 as god continued to lead me reading through that chapter verses 11 through 16 really hit me and challenges christians and specifically the ones in ephesus to become mature and mighty in christ not mighty in a way that they would exert power or pride but mighty in a way where they were str strengthening in their witness they were strengthening in their walk they were strengthening in their worship and they were strengthening in their work for the lord jesus christ i want you to look at that passage with me ephesians 4 verses 11 through 16. and as i read through the passage i want you to observe when paul is writing the christians there in ephesus four words that he actually mentions twice and you can see it as you look at your text the word mature he mentions it twice the word build or built he mentions it twice the word grow or grows he mentions it twice the word work or works he mentions it twice and i'm going to read it to you and emphasize those words as i do let's read ephesians 4 verses 11 through 16. so christ himself gave the apostles the prophets the evangelists the pastors and teachers to equip his people for works of service so that the body of christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and the knowledge of the son of god and become mature attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of christ then verse 14 we will no longer be infants tossed back and forth by the waves and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming verse 15 instead speaking the truth in love we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head that is christ from him the whole body joined and held together by every supporting ligament grows and builds itself up in love as each part does its work the author of the book of ephesians is encouraging believers in the city of ephesus to grow up staying young as spiritual babies in the faith will leave believers vulnerable to every wind of doctrine and crafty deception god wants us to mature and to be mighty in five areas according to the passage in our function in our faith in our fullness in our fortitude and in our fit mighty and function in verses 11 through 12 and verse 16 it talks about works of service god wants us to be mature and mighty in our works of service secondly in our faith in verse 13 he talks about unity of the faith god wants us to be mature and mighty in our faith thirdly in our fullness verse 13 talks about fullness in christ god wants us to be mature and mighty in our fullness in christ in verse 14 he says no longer being spiritual infants tossed back and forth god wants us to be mature and mighty in our fortitude that we are being strong and strengthened in christ in fifth mighty and are fit he uses words like love and joined and held together and supporting in verses 15 and 16 in other words we can't do it alone we have to be fitted together strong and in unity so for the next four weeks i'm going to do a brand new five-week series called high five i'm going to preach about these five areas where we can grow mature and mighty in christ mature in our function in our faith in our fullness in our fortitude in our fit starting next week we're going to talk about works of service so paul the writer then reminds us that the offices that help us become mature and mighty in these ways are the offices of apostle prophet evangelist pastor and teacher these are the gifts of spiritual leadership and offices that god has given to the church to equip believers toward their spiritual growth some people know this as the fivefold ministry what god does is he gives these gifts of spiritual leadership offices to the clergy and the staff that support them so that then they are deployed to help believers become mature and mighty in christ the job of those offices is to equip and to prepare you the body of christ to do the work of the ministry the church staff and employees are not here to do the spiritual work for you if there's a clergy member a minister or a pastor or anyone who works for the church in a supporting role that group is given to you as a gift from god to help support you so you you you can do the work of the ministry we don't teach and preach just to get amens and hallelujahs and hand claps we don't lead worship just so you can watch us we don't serve just so you can see us serving we do all that we do to equip you to do the work of the ministry we are more than simply ministers we're administers we are there to administrate and support you and equip you so you can do works of service you are the ministers legally you may have ministers and clergy professionally you may have pastors and teachers and so on and so forth but actually god says every single believer is a minister and our job is to make every one of you listen better ministers that's why we're here in fact first peter 4 10 says this each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others faithfully administering god's grace in its various forms each one of you every one of you has a gift and whatever gift you have that you've received from god you are supposed to use it to extend god's grace to others and we're supposed to help you do it so you never can see a pastor like like a hired lawyer or a hired accountant sometimes people see church leaders as hired people but the reality is you know they don't do the work for you they do the work because god has called them to equip you to do the work that god wants you to do on the earth that's why every believer should be an ambassador of reconciliation as though god were making his appeal through you to the rest of the world so let me just ask you a few questions right up front here first of all how long have you been a christian how long have you been a christian you see the chronological age and the maturity age are two different things there are people who've been christians for 20 years and they're still babies in the faith going to church for 10 years doesn't make you somehow a mature christian now it can be that way if you utilize what the church has given you so you can grow absolutely and we receive spiritual babies we receive spiritual infants we want spiritual infants in the church we want people to be born again just like last week at our 10 30 service in owens mills we we gave it our time for people to stand up to receive christ as lord and savior and all over the house people had stood up and identified that they had prayed to receive jesus christ as their lord and savior spiritual infants babies nothing wrong with it in fact we encourage it unless you've been around for five years infancy is no longer good if you're five years old if some of you have been saved for five years how are you doing in your spiritual faith here's another question do you feel like you are prepared and equipped to do the work of the ministry if not why not another question what else do you need to become stronger in your faith and ready to serve as a mature minister of the gospel what do you need another question are you prepared to sustain your spiritual life and grow it up within yourselves and within your families maybe one more question have you prepared and equipped those under your influence to grow in christ and minister for him bridgeway my goal is to help you get there the goal of our clergy and our ministry leaders is to help you get there the goal of our elders council is to help you get there elder kevin's goal was to help you get there and he truly was the epitome of a spiritually mature man the goal of all of our ministers and ministries and programs is to help you become mature and mighty in christ so that's our theme of adulting this year mature and mighty in christ from ephesians 4 11 through 16 that's our thing we put it on wristbands you can get it after the service mature and mighty in christ and guess what i gave these to the elders on thursday morning and elder kevin passed away friday morning guess what he had on his wrist his daughter bridget sent me this picture you see we don't want you to be the same and in the same spiritual place that you were last year next year we want you to be in a better place spiritually listen we're all in different places in our spiritual growth but wherever you are we want you to grow from there we love you wherever you are we receive you wherever you are and we do not judge you in this church no matter where you are we want you to grow from where you are to where you can be in the months to come with a little more focus prioritization and commitments listen to what the apostle paul says in first corinthians three he talks about this this need for the corinthians to grow and i'm going to read you two new testament passages then i'm going to give you some practical things in fact one practical application that you can do but first corinthians chapter 3 and listen to what it says in verses 1 and 2. it says this brothers sisters are included i could not address you as spiritual but as worldly mere infants in christ i gave you milk not solid food for you were not yet ready for it indeed you were still not ready in other words he's saying you've got to move from the milk of the word to the meat of the word in hebrews it says the same thing a little differently if you go to hebrews chapter 5 and verse 11 listen to what it says and it goes into chapter six but this is what it says we have much to say about this but it is hard to explain because you are slow to learn in fact though by this time you ought to be teachers you need someone to teach you the elementary truths of god god's word all over again you need milk not solid food anyone who lives on milk being still an infant is not acquainted with the teachings about righteousness but solid food is for the mature who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil constant use constant use of god's word to help you grow in your faith i'd like to also announce that there are three strong people who are on our clergy team who are here to help us with this in fact there are three folk i want to highlight first i want to highlight pastor steve hartnett who's moving from a volunteer role as pastor to a part-time employee role also pastor sandy pope who's moving from a volunteer role to a part-time employee role even as she still works in the marketplace and we're bringing on will easton as a pastoral resident after internship you become a resident essentially here's a 26 year old pastor in training look at those folk because they are joining our team and we are strengthening them to help strengthen you and so we are thankful for pastor sandy pastor steve and will easton our new pastoral resident for the next year so what have we said so far we want you to become mature and mighty in christ that we're here to help you become mature and mighty in christ so what is my one practical application here it is choose three ways to grow choose three ways to grow we not only have a ministry theme this year but we actually have a ministry plan that you can commit to if you say pastor i want to grow this year guess what my team and i have come up with 30 ways you can grow and mature in christ 30 ways and i'm not going to mention all 30 of them but i'm going to highlight a few you can go online to bridgeway.cc slash the word 30 because you can't put numbers in there but bridgeway.ccslash30 and a plan will come up and you'll see the 30 different things all right i'm going to highlight a few of them but those 30 different things you can do to say you know what i'm gonna i'm gonna choose three of these things over the next ministry year our ministry year goes from september the 12th to june the 12th that's 39 weeks okay and i want you to just choose three now you can choose more than three but three is ten percent and god can do a lot with ten percent can he that's a message i can preach right now i'm not even gonna do it but i'm telling you ten percent will change your life okay you have 30 ways choose at least three if you go more than that you'll get more because whatever you sow you will reap even more i'm just saying so tempted to talk about giving right now but what i want you to do is to give up your talents your treasures and your time and i want you to look at all 30 of these and say lord what three do i want to engage in now let me highlight several one of the ones i'm most excited about and i'm excited about all of them trust me and throughout the summer as i've been thinking about these i've been writing them down and sharing them and talking with my ministry team and everything but this is one thing i want you to do we're going to do a 30 hour all night revival service of preaching praying praising and prophetic declarations get it preaching praying praising and prophetic declarations for 30 hours we're going to start on friday night october the 29th 6 p.m we're going to go all through friday night all through the day on saturday until like 11 59 p.m on saturday night every hour preaching for 20 minutes or so there's gonna be a sermon i'm gonna have 30 different preachers and then we're going to pray and then we're going to praise god and then we're going to have a prophetic declaration the person that's assigned the prophetic declaration will make a a declaration and a decree based on the word of god that was just preached to claim that it will be true in this place i believe that when we build our church continually on prayer and the word of god god will take us to the next level of maturity and might and i'm so excited about it when people wake up in the morning they turn on their broadcast there's going to be someone preaching it's going to be live in our locations as well in person we'll give you the the the details on that so you can come all night you can come for a few hours you can stay and watch it on at home you can do both but here's the good news all around the world whether you're in australia whether you are in nigeria whether you're in algeria or whether you're in accac you'll be able to hear the word of god and to press in with praise and prayer and prophetic declarations over your life mark your calendars october the 29th here's the second thing i'm excited about 30 minutes of a monthly prayer call on the 30th of every single month starting this month september 30th i am gonna lead a prayer call from 7 30 to 8. you got to get up early 7 30 to 8. anyone can join you don't have to be a partner at bridgeway a member you don't have to be a spiritual leader as long as you call bridgeway home or maybe you have visitors that you want to join you can pray with the senior pastor we're going to pray for 30 minutes every month on the 30th starting september 30th the only month it won't be on the 30th is february if you don't know why you'll figure that out we'll pray for your learning in the lord guess what else you get to do every single thursday starting this thursday the 16th of september for 30 minutes from 12 to 12 30. we're going to have preaching in the word online so you can take a lunch hour and get 30 minutes of the word of god anytime a thursday from 12 to 12 30. just put it in your calendar maybe that's what you want to do for the next 39 weeks pastor eli and pastoral resident will easton overseeing this you'll have great preaching every single week and we'll take about take about 15 to 20 minutes to preach in about 15 minutes or 10 minutes to have a dialogue about the sermon and then you're done eat your sandwich while you're at work go to your car and sit in there and just have a time of the word so you're getting the word every single week at the lunch hour on thursdays every single month praying with the pastor on the 30th on the 29th and the 30th of october praying all night long praising all night long preaching all night long prophetic declarations all night long how exciting here are a couple other things you do everything's around 30. we want 30 people to get baptized this year if you've not been baptized this is the time you call the church i want to be baptized what do i need to do i want to be baptized i'm going to identify with christ as a believer through the public ordinance of baptism 30 new partners hey listen if you are not a partner with our church this is the year to become one you could have been around for 20 years i know a lot of people been around for 5 10 15 20 years they're not partners yet this is the year to say you know what i want to grow mature and mighty in christ i want to show my commitment to the church to the pastor to the leaders i am yoking myself with this body they may not be perfect in fact they're pretty imperfect and kind of crazy but guess what i still want to grow join us we're not the kind of church you walk to the front shake the preacher's hand you become a member with kind of church you go to a class you learn about who we are you attend you serve and then you say i really want to make this commitment to be a part of bridgeway 30 new tithers if you're not tithing make this the year that you say you know what i've been given five percent i'm going to get up to 10 because 10 will change my life at the same time you might say i'm not giving anything let me start with 2 3 great but make this the year you say you know what i'm going to stop cheating god if i want to mature and be mighty in christ worship is great the word of god is great serving in the church is great but i've been cheating god for a long time and i'm going to stop cheating god this is the year i want to go to the next level and if i'm going to go to the next level i've got to start giving back to god because of all he's given me this is a part of what it means to grow in christ you're not going to grow in christ if you keep holding on to every dollar and not having faith to believe that god can multiply in his divine economics the faith that you sow into the ministry man i can preach that and i will right now and so what i'm saying now i'm just kidding but boy i'm tempted here's something i'm so excited about so excited 30 small businesses i want to support and i want you to support them too a couple of weeks ago at the campus in owens mills rice's town i came to the church and i said listen after the service i'm going to subway and i want you to join me there you see there's a subway in owens mills on red brook boulevard it's kind of off the beaten path off of red run boulevard and i'd gone there a couple of times and there's a 15 year old named mod who is serving me my sandwiches and after he would serve me well i got a protein bowl without the bread you could do put all the fixings on lettuce it's really good right and he says would you tell people that we're here because we're not doing very good with our business i said sure and so that sunday i came in i said hey y'all you want to go bless this business they're not even open on the weekends but they said they would open for us on sunday i committed to buying 20 subs i said would you open would you ask your dad so ask the dad ask the mom it's a little family business would you would you open on sunday if i can guarantee you 20 people and if 20 people don't come i'll pay for 20. cause that would be great so that sunday i mentioned it to to our people a couple of weeks ago and guess what a hundred folk came the line was out the door there was some rain people were holding up umbrellas other people had given me cash just to bless them with so we had you walk into the place on the table pounds of cash and i'm like hey just to pay for your sandwich you know hey take this take this people kept adding cash and couldn't give it away because they wanted to bless this business these people were overwhelmed they had open on that sunday for two and a half hours just for bridgeway and guess what after it was all over we laid hands and prayed we were in a circle and our hands are up praying for the business afterwards the owner the dad invited me to come to the back to see the numbers and before he showed me the register he gave me this great big hug and the way he hugged me was he bent over at the hip and he just almost like you're tackling someone put his arms around me and put his head down into my into my hip right here and just held on to me he said thank you so much dr anderson thank you so much i said you are so welcome these are the people of god we're believers in jesus and we just wanted to bless your business today i don't know what their faith or their religion is you know that didn't really matter to me i do believe that the love of christ will just continue to woo them i have a vision that one day they're going to be in this campus at owens mills rice's town with their hands lifted high singing what elder kevin was singing he is lord you just wait and see what god does but guess how much they may i won't give you the exact numbers of their business but i will tell you this that day they made 10 times as much as they normally make in one whole day of eight hours because of bridgeway showing up i want to do more of that i want us to just bless 30 businesses maybe you choose your own businesses but i'm going to throughout the year just be you know as god leads me we're going to bless businesses and talking about god leading me so check this out there is a seamstress in kenya in kabir kenya it was a very very poor area and janice fonseca my public relations person is connected to another lady in our church who serves named mumbi who's from kenya and mumbi uh was telling janice that there's this seamstress in kenya who can sew her self off and so she's just so so very well and she was she was an orphan and she wanted to use her sewing skills to make money so she could teach other orphans how to sew so how they can make money right and so i said you know janiece i've always wanted like an african jacket i want something that's different than anybody else do you think that she could uh take different african uh colors and just make a jacket for me she goes absolutely she goes the clothes that have made for me were absolutely perfect in their in the way they fit and i said okay have her do it she's gonna but doc listen you're not gonna get your money back she's a great seamstress then they wait for someone to come one of the family members to come over uh from from africa and then they will deliver it well several weeks later i got the jacket now i didn't want to wear it to start my message because i didn't want you to be so blinded by the joseph technicolor uh dreamcoat that you're about to see but i did ask janice and mumby to come on stage for a couple of minutes because now i'm going to put the jacket on if i would have started this way you wouldn't have listened to me but now that i've given you the back drop you're going to see this coat so come on welcome mumbi and welcome janice to the stage welcome welcome okay if you put this bad coat on me look at this come on now look at that all right put this on me because i know it's going to look good okay hang on here's my arm right here my arm right here whoo what y'all think about this i could see kevin thornton in this no i couldn't i couldn't i could with this shorts and sandals look at this perfectly fit perfectly made mumby tell us the story what's her name do you have a microphone do we have a microphone i think we forgot a microphone hang on one's coming right now so this is johnny's this was made for her this is made for you right and this was made for you okay mumbi tell us the story of gladys sure gladys akumu is gonna go up a little bit sure a 36 year old woman in kenya who was an orphan learned how to sew in order to support herself um and she is excellent i have i've never physically seen her you just send her the material she sends you the material you send her what you want and she makes it to fit bespoke wow perfect yes tell us the story of how she became a seamstress sure so she um she's an orphan and um she went through school she only attended primary school she then uh dropped out her uncle took her in she went in to learn how to be a tailor so that she could learn how to make money and support herself got married at 19 and is now um sewing and has apprenticed under some tailors and now has some people working with her as well that's wonderful and so what do you think about my jacket it's hot it's hot right yeah on point like a decimal can you see it oh yeah okay i just want to make sure you stevie wonder could see that everyone could see that okay great fantastic all right so if anybody wanted to order anything from her um how's that going to work sure so we're going to go uh anyone can go on to anderson speaks right.andersonspeaks.com hit my fashion yes right and then they can from that point on what happens then they would uh have to take measurements and get a professional tailor to do it because gladys will be able to fit whatever you want but you have to provide the correct measurements okay send those there is an email on the website you will get a response we'll send you you'll see material where you can pick whichever one you want and then pay the uh amount that will be sent to you wait and get your masterpiece and it's not very expensive it's not at all which is absolutely amazing i guess the way money works and all that so i mean if you were to get something like this uh made you're looking at fifteen hundred dollars and i'm ten percent of that which is absolutely incredible uh you guys talked to her via uh zoom or whatsapp or whatever face-to-face how did she feel about the whole thing wow she felt she was speechless she was blessed you can tell especially in people's eyes when they're very grateful when it's coming from the heart and that's exactly how she was she was so grateful she can't wait to um put these masterpieces together she says her joy is in blessing others when people are happy she's happy yeah yes well thank you for being the conduit thank you for being the conduit to make this happen god bless you guys i'm going to continue preaching in this bad looking coat right here so our name is gladys again you can go to andersonspeaks.com hit my fashion and you'll see the african print and again anything you see in a magazine or you print that you want scarves dresses anything you see just you know snap that picture do what she said and she'll actually make it for you she's really a great seamstress so that's just that's just so exciting to me here's something else that you can do remember you're going to choose out of 30 things i'm going to give you two or three more and then i'll be done with these but 30 weeks of church attendance 30 weeks of church attendance you have 39 weeks between today and june the 12th 39 weeks like an academic year say this year i'm going to make 30 weeks of church attendance whether online in per in person or both i'm not going to miss church except nine times now for some of you come every single week you're like that's a lot but for a lot of people most people come about once a month maybe some twice a month so i want you to say i'm gonna i'm gonna check this box off and when you go online they have these little circles for each one and when you click that guess what if you click and say this is the one i'm committed to you then join a group and that group can engage with one another and there's going to be a challenge champion because you're going to take these 30 challenges and take three of them and whatever three you choose they're going to be going to be a challenge champion who's going to be there to support you and encourage you along the way 30 hours of volunteer christian service how about that so you know what this year i'm going to volunteer my service to the lord for 30 hours for some of you you do that every week others of you you haven't stepped into that because you've been busy in your role as a mom or in your role as a business person maybe this is the year to say i want to serve and use my gifts even as a seamstress i want to do it for the lord okay here's one some of you are going to be like doc i don't know if i can do this one are you ready rise up early for 30 days to meet the lord you know the lord rose up early to meet with his father but for some of you who are night people you're like i just don't know if i can do it i'm just saying for 30 days try it rise up early before work you know before you get started set your alarm 30 minutes before get up early and spend time with the lord here's one 30 bible verses to memorize click that one and you'll have 30 bible verses to memorize with a group of people good old-fashioned going back to bible memory remember we're like the word of god preaching and praying and prophetic declarations like we want to mature in the lord you cannot mature if you keep having milk in your system you need the milk but you need the meat and that word needs to be in you when you don't have the bible around you can't click on because the internet doesn't have good wifi and no one else is around and you need god's word in that minute you can't call a pastor you can't even call the pastor or resident all you can do is call on the name of the lord and quote god's word that you've memorized how about this one this would be like the last one or two okay i'm really excited about this one this one right here i'm challenging you to join me 30 hours of investment in your physical health i'm gonna lose 30 pounds already started i want you to lose 30 pounds with me for those of you who need to now some of you don't need to lose 30 pounds uh maybe you need to lose three but join the challenge to lose weight with me and to be more physically healthy others of you maybe you need to lose more than that but i'm just focusing on 30 all right doing it slowly i'm not all crazy about it you know everybody has their different way of doing it but listen if you need somebody to help you here's a business not only you can support i'm telling you if you need a coach if you need a workout partner if you need a trainer contact dee williamson he has a side gig called rs fit which stands for renewed strength fitness and you can find him at rsfit.net i'm going to give you his phone number and this is what i'm going to say to you call d he'll put you on a plan and other trainers and coaches and physical uh uh folk who you know do all that health stuff if you're in the church call dee and he's putting together a list so that way he can refer out people who need the the training and the coaching so call d here's his number you ready 301 526 1415. got it 301 526 14 15. he's our chief engineer he's on my support team for real talk with dr david anderson but he runs this business and a lot of people who have worked with him feel so good about uh the way they feel because of d so thank you dee for that now i told you i was excited about it because i'm going to work on this i've been losing i've been trimming amber's look so wonderful and and so you know i'm still eating some good steak and chicken but i just kind of cut off of of the bread a little bit except last night at dinner but that's a different story my point is this i'm working on it slowly a little pound at a time but some of you don't need to lose weight with your body but you do need to lose weight with the stuff in your garage you need to lose 30 bags of clothing 30 pairs of shoes i know somebody just fell out in the living room night right now i mean let god tell you okay let god tell you what you need to get rid of but maybe you need to get rid of 30 pair of jeans 30 pair of clothes 30 pair of shoes maybe you need to get rid of 30 pounds of something else in your life here's the point whatever's weighing you down that could then allow you to be a little more fit so that you can worship god better that's what we're talking about and that's why i'm excited about it and we have a challenge champion to help you with you know unloading some of your material possessions or maybe even some of the weight on your body listen the one practical application is that you would choose three things out of the 30. remember go to bridgeway.cc slash the word 30. now let me ask you who's committed to growing to become more mature and mighty in christ this year wave who will commit to choosing three ways to grow wave now before you can grow in christ you must be born again into christ some of you are saying you know pastor i'm hearing you and i want to grow spiritually too how do i start you start by inviting jesus christ to be your lord and your savior or the way jesus put it when he talked to a guy named nicodemus in john chapter 3 when he asked him how can i get into the kingdom of heaven he said you must be born again you must be born again spiritually in order to come into the kingdom of god to grow from being a spiritual baby to a spiritual adult and one day just like kevin we're going to go home to be with the lord and when we walk in the lord is going to welcome up us with open arms as he did with saint john alan kevin over three thousand victims from september 11th and hundreds of thousands of people who lost loved ones because of the covet 19 pandemic it's time bridgeway for christ's sake grow up

Channel: Bridgeway Community Church

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Id: cKkqXQmfgdg

Length: 42min 40sec (2560 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 12 2021