Mighty in Function (Message Only)

good morning good afternoon good evening wherever you are whatever country you're in whatever city you're in i'm so glad to be worshiping the lord today with you at bridgeway community church and with the word of god today we are going to be talking about being mighty and function in my vision message last sunday i reminded us that god gives us five offices and spiritual leaders in order to help us become mature and mighty in christ to equip believers to do the work of the ministry and particularly in five different areas one in function and that's what we're going to talk about today how we operate in the body of christ two in faith we'll talk about that next week who and what we believe three in our fullness what we actually should be experiencing in christ for in our fortitude how strong is our defense and then in our fit who we're connected to and aligned with in order to do the ministry that god has called us to so all five weeks is a brand new series called high five starting today with mighty in function let's pray together heavenly father thank you uh for your word and thank you for allowing it to work in us as we work for the kingdom of god i pray that as the word goes out that it will also go in and that it will make a difference in our lives in a very practical way today for it is in the name of jesus we pray amen and amen growing up as a kid i used all of my personality all of my talents and my gifts my relational skills my natural abilities for my own glory i used to do my best with the abilities i had to influence people to pull people together i have a gregarious personality and i could create a good time had by all i even had good talking skills i could talk my way into things and talk my way out of things if you will and my mom used to always say your your mouth is going to get you in trouble and she was not only prophetic she was accurate these traits though i used to attract friends and enjoy partying and date girls and basically run the streets but at age 18 when the spirit of god touched my life and got a hold of me i was convicted in my heart for all the sins against the lord i gave my life to christ fully that day when i was driving down riggs road in prince george's county maryland i poured my car i pulled my car off to the side of the road i prayed and i gave my life to christ fully i i actually realized that at that point i felt like i had a sense of purpose a sense of calling a reason to live you see i thought i was living before but i was not i was existing for me but not for a purpose i had a life indeed and it was a good life but it wasn't an abundant life it wasn't a godly life it wasn't a life filled with purpose perspective power and promise but when i gave my life over to christ it was now a life that had a sense of purpose and power and perspective and promise most of all while my life was fun before it was pointless but now i have a life that's still fun but on point how do you grow from a life that is pointless to a life that's on point is anyone interested in learning about how you can get your life on point how you can live a life on point is anyone interested in learning how to move from a life of aimlessness and meaninglessness to a life of purpose purposeful aim meaning in abundance in a minute i'll have you turn to ephesians chapter four the foundational passage from which we've been uh teaching our vision message last week and i'm going to carry on throughout this week and we'll pick it up at verse 11 shortly but one thing is for sure as we read the scripture and as we think about our theme which is mature and mighty in christ we are to realize that when we work for christ when we function in christ we will experience what i've told people a long time the three f's that working for christ will be fun fulfilling and frustrating and a few people around the ministry have heard me say that many times and i think it's ranked true for those who've been recruited to this ministry over the years i've always promised them i never want to promise them something i can't deliver but one of the things i could say is it would be fun fulfilling and frustrating now let's talk about frustrating for a minute because when you do ministry and when you work for the lord there are times that there will be frustration there are times that you'll work with people and people will be frustrating life will be frustrating ministry will be frustrating but listen that's life anyway if you're going to be frustrated you might as well be frustrated doing work for christ so what i say is just take a deep breath cough if you have to and keep moving okay the frustration will go away now it'll come back again but it'll go away it may come back again but it'll go away just beware of it but don't be controlled by frustrating feelings with work with processes with people just deal with it and once you understand that frustration will always come and go then you can actually enjoy the other two f's fun and fulfilling today we're talking about being mighty in function in the first three letters of the word function is there you have it fun that's right and fun is an acronym for finding your niche got it finding your niche now you can't spell it like in english finding your niche because you have a why but if you spell it like people text you're good finding your niche so just spell it like you're texting sort of the new english language in america and when you find your niche for christ and serve in it you will experience a life of purpose and perspective one of power and promise your life won't be perfect but it will have a purpose life on point is much more fulfilling than a life that is pointless and when you live a life that's on point you will produce two things you'll produce fruit and you'll please god almost like a two-fold goal if you will a two-fold outcome when you live on the earth on point you produce fruit and you please god and while i like talking about the topic of living on purpose i actually like using the term living on point because it seems to be much clearer when you explain it in other words purpose is great but it seems so big and you ask people what is your purpose a lot of people can't really explain it because it feels unattainable and unreachable and unexplainable and it feels like it changes this year and then a decade from now and people are like i think i'm living my purpose so what i want you to do because it could be a bit confusing when you think about living on purpose think about living on point a life on point will focus you around these two outcomes producing fruit and pleasing god a good place to put a place holder and just pause and ask yourself a question is just ask a question about the two outcomes am i producing fruit am i pleasing god you see god desires that every believer if he leaves them on the earth after they get saved is that they would become fruitful that's that part of am i producing fruit the other question am i pleasing god god desires that every believer would be faithful so god wants you to be fruitful he wants you to be faithful faithfulness plus fruitfulness equals a functional faith let me say it again faithfulness plus fruitfulness equals a functional faith and if you don't have those two things as you're living your life on the earth trying to figure out your purpose then those things if they're not resident in your life if you're not becoming fruitful and you're not pleasing god then you may not have a functional faith you may actually have a dysfunctional faith and there's a lot of dysfunctional christians and dysfunctional churches and dysfunctional ministries in the church of jesus christ but if we could just think about those two things yes we want purpose but it seems so big how about is my life on point and if my life's on point that i'm trying to be be as fruitful as i can be and as faithful as i can be because faithfulness plus fruitfulness equals a functional faith now the passage that we've been talking about begins at verse 11 from ephesians chapter four i'll focus on 11 and 12 and then also on verse 16 because it has those words works or works of service and that's kind of what we're talking about today how do we operate in the body of christ how do we work for christ how do we serve for christ picking it up at 4 11 ephesians i read so christ himself gave the apostles the prophets the evangelists the pastors and teachers to equip his people for here it is works of service so that the body of christ may be built up you see when you use your gifts to serve the lord so that the body of christ is being built up as it says in verse 12 edified lifted inspired you are producing fruit you see the fruit of working for christ and functioning for him is that others are being built up this is a part of what it means to be producing fruit that we are building others up your gifts that god has given you are not for you they are to build others up and when others are edified you're producing fruit when others are edified you are pleasing god when others are edified you are living on point so question what are you doing to edify other people how are you using your gifts your talents your resources to lift other people up and to build them up toward their maturity and mightiness in christ in so doing you will be blessed and fulfilled by working for the lord and serving others because these gifts and talents and resources that god's blessed you with are given so that you would share them with others not to build you up not to build yourself up but to build up others but here's the secret you get the blessing so you're lifting other people up god is glorified and you are blessed because your gifts and your life is on point and it's actually making a difference for people around you that was one of the beautiful things about the funeral yesterday for kevin thornton who died a week ago one of our elders suddenly his life was on point and as a result of it guess what people were edified god was glorified and he lived a blessed life so will you you will be fulfilled when you serve the lord when you work for the lord and you will have fun functioning for christ and operating in your unique gifts then we move to verse 16 which says this 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 there's the word again work builds itself up in love so the body of christ is a collective of people and we build ourselves up by building one another up by loving one another the body of christ builds itself up in love but it says as each in verse 16 did you notice the phrase as each part does its work you see we are called to work for christ not just for others but with others we are called to work for christ not just for others but with others how is your work doing with others how is your ministry doing with others how is your operating and your gifts doing with others you see it says each part has work to do work for christ is not about me it's about we i have a part you have a part we have a part ministry is not about me about building my kingdom my ministry my department ministry is about we and together each person grabs their piece of the net just like in that passage in luke chapter five when peter is trying to catch fish all night and he can't seem to do it and jesus says we'll put out the nets one more time and peter puts out the nuts and guess what happens all these fish the miracle of fish start coming to such a degree that his net is so full that it says in that passage he had to signal his other partners and call them over so they could help him and they all grabbed the piece of the net to pull the increase in miracle indeed but remember this more miracles means more work sometimes we pray for a miracle god do a miracle do a miracle okay but remember more miracles means more work sometimes what happens is we ask god to do a miracle and then we just want to move on and live our life the way we lived it prior to the miracle but if you receive a miracle from god that means he has more work for you to do and the more fish that come in the more people are needed to grab their piece of the net so yeah god we want you to do a miracle but remember more miracles mean more work but together each person if they'll grab their piece of the net not the whole net just your peace then together we can achieve more together each person does their part and as a result together we will produce much fruit now let me just pause to remind us what we've learned so far before i continue in the message because i don't want to lose you along the way what have we talked about so far we said this living a life on point is another way of thinking about our purpose we set a twofold goal of working for the lord is to produce fruit please god that faithfulness plus fruitfulness equals a functional faith if you don't have those it's dysfunctional very much so when we work for the lord you're guaranteed the three f's remember what they are what are they fun fulfilling and frustrating and we learned that fun stands for finding your niche that's right and the way you would text it okay so now i want to talk about how do you find your niche you might be saying well man i want to know what my niche is how do you find your niche well we saw the interview with mitchell goldstein and he said in his testimony before the sermon that he's doing a lot of different things this means he has multiple skills he should use them all use them all to make money use them all for ministry use them all to make a difference but most of all use them all to serve people and to advance the kingdom of god however we need to realize that even when you have multiple gifts and and for him he makes different income from different places even when you have multiple gifts and you're doing different things at some point you have to begin to zero in and focus more on this and that is this what are and mitchell can ask himself what are my best gifts for my greatest impact you can ask yourself what are my best gifts for my greatest impact in other words he can be doing a lot of things but his best gifts should be used for the greatest impact so as you begin to focus you begin to realize that i have a lot of gifts but what are the best gifts i have that will have the most impact because all of us are skilled to do so many different things right but what things should i focus in on that will have the broadest impact the most impact doesn't mean that i can't do other things use my skills and my abilities on the weekends or at night or in the mornings or or every every summer or every season there there are many of you that have so many gifts and skills but you'll you'll you'll never actually live on point until you begin to take all of those begin to maximize and leverage them but most of all direct them and point them so you can get to an on point life there's a woman that's been sort of a a leader of consulting in my life for well over 20 years and she does leadership consulting and she would sit with me to do life plans and stuff like that and i remember she said david what's unique about you and also difficult is that you have a positive personality but god's called you to a very negative problem in the world race relations so racial reconciliation and dealing with racism is a very negative ugly dirty kind of a thing but you're a very positive personality and you put those two together you don't always get that mix so you've got to figure out a way where you can leverage your positivity against a very negative kind of a calling if you will and i remember that being in my head really helped me to to think about racism a positive solution to racism a god honoring solution to racism and so when i wrote the book racism the art of inclusion part of that fodder in my spirit of thinking was how do i how do i move everything that i do to a point how do i build bridges to a point and and i'll show you with my hands how she explains this she explains it like a inverted v like a pyramid that is wide at the bottom and then you take all your gifts your skills your resources your talents and as you move closer to the top okay like this she says if you keep focusing keep focusing all that you're doing radio television all that books you know preaching teaching do all that but focus it like this she goes something happens in in the world and this is what happens once you focus to get on point then it goes from here to this you ready boom take all that you have all that you do all your networks all your resources begin to focus them toward a mission begin to focus them toward what is most important and then what happens when you hit that point it goes like that and now it begins to impact the world and in a sense i believe that that's a word for someone that's an image for someone because you have a lot that you can do you have a lot of people that you can work for you have a lot of companies that you can work at people are changing companies changing jobs working from home looking for better pay have multiple skills so so you know when you start thinking about your time your talents your treasures which you want to invest in think about how it gets you from here to here and that helps you as you're making decisions is this moving me closer to being on point there's a scripture that i like because it says whatever there's two like whatever scriptures that i like and one of them is first peter 4 10 which says and i read it last week each one of you use here it is whatever gift he has received to serve others faithfully administrating god's grace in its various forms so whatever gift you have there's another whatever verse i like in colossians 3 23 it says this whatever you do work at it with all of your heart as working for the lord not for men so take all your gifts take all your skills but whatever you do do it with all your heart as working for the lord not for men let's break that verse down just for a second because it gives us four things that we should know whatever you do that's the what work at it with all of your heart that's the how as working for the lord that's the who not for men that's the who not did you see it the what the how the who and the who not so as you're thinking about the inverted v as you're thinking about focusing as you're thinking about your purpose and trying to be on point as you're thinking about pleasing god as you're thinking about producing fruit whatever you do you have the what you have the how you have the who you have the who not now for the rest of my time i want to give you five practical applications and you choose which one of these five are something that you actually want to commit to here's the first one and this is all to sort of help you get on point here's the first one take the shape seminar when bridgeway offers it on october the 9th 2021 pastor dan will be teaching this seminar i believe it may be a half day seminar we call it shape and shape is an acronym that was originated by a pastor named rick warren who wrote the book the purpose-driven life and the s in shape stands for spiritual gifts the h stands for heart like your heart's passion the a stands for abilities those natural abilities that you have the p stands for passion what are you passionate about and the e stands for experiences all of us come with many different experiences but when you take all of those areas your spiritual gifts your heart your abilities your passion and your experiences and begin to leverage them that's one way that you can actually move from here to here to live a life on point so for somebody that may be exactly the next action step for you and you can go to bridgeway dot cc slash events and see the details of that october 9th seminar called shape here's the second practical application talk to people in your life who know you well and ask them so what do you think are my best gifts that will have the greatest impact what do you think are my best gifts that will have the greatest impact sometimes we have in our brain these are my best gifts and then you talk to somebody like yeah they're not really your best kids you know uh you know this is having the greatest impact you know because i felt good about it and you realize well no maybe it's not do you want to waste your life uh doing a bunch of things that really aren't on point talk to people around you who can speak into your life i have people in my life some of my pastors and clergy members i'm thinking of of of one now uh pastor eli who will come to me and he'll he'll ask me pastor so what do you think about this what do you think about education what do you think in the next couple of years in my in my profession what do you think about preaching here what do you what do you think about my skills here like he's asking those questions and i'm sure he's asking it of other people but he wants me to speak into his life because he doesn't want to live a life out here all of his life and that's why when he came to bridgeway it began to move him closer and closer to his point and now he's doing this and you can see his impact everywhere he's just one of so many great examples of people who are living their life on point here's a third thing take the gallup strength test take the gallup strengths test gallup.com you can discover what your top five strengths are out of 34 themes if you will they will have you take like a 25 minute test right on online and then they'll spit out a 20-page report it's free and it tells you what your top five strengths are out of the 34 what are your top five and the the data is basically saying you should be putting 80 of what you do in those top five strength areas eighty percent of what you do should ha should literally be utilizing those top five strength areas i remember a brother and i many years ago did this together his name is rick and he kind of knew the owner of of of this strengths test and so we had him come to our our room and and we spent like a day together looking at how how my strengths and how his strengths would work together to to do the work that we wanted to do and i learned what my five strengths were let me tell you what they are strategic positivity activator woo and maximizer wu stands for winning others over isn't that interesting even when i was younger and wasn't for christ how i was doing that i told you i was having fun but now check it out i'm having fun for christ and producing fruit and pleasing god and so it's not like everything changes god just takes what he put in you even when you were just a seed in your mother's womb and he begins to develop those experiences and develop those gifts and those talents and then when you give your life to christ he not only gives you spiritual gifts but he begins to use your strengths compensate for your weaknesses and sometimes give you a thorn in the flesh or a limp to keep you humble along the way to use you in mighty ways when i first introduced the strengths-based leadership to our staff many years ago frank easton then took it and he began to develop it in his in the school system he was working in but i'll remember a third of our staff changed their jobs because we would just have conversations like do you feel like 80 percent of the work you're doing is in your strength areas and that opens up a conversation to say hmm i'm not quite sure let's talk about it and about a third of our staff shift some of the roles along along the way now we are a completely a strengths-based organization and because of the good work of frank easton and stephanie farnsworth and i'm sure a team of other people you can not only learn more about strengths at our church but you can actually talk to them and they will help you get connected in a way that you can figure out what these strengths mean but first go get the test just go to gallup.com take the test let them shoot that 20-page uh you know uh uh report to you and you can email it to anybody you want so guess what people who are close in my life i have their top five strengths right in my phone so i have their name and i look at the notes and i see what their strengths are if you walk around our our building uh where the offices are there's everybody's strengths are right there on on the door so this may be one of the five practical applications you say you know what i'm gonna do that because i want my life to do this i want to be on point here's the fourth thing try writing a personal mission statement try writing a personal mission statement now a mission statement for yourself is really just for you it's not for everybody else it's to inspire and to motivate you try writing one mind and very solemnly do i share it because it's really just for me but it's eight words to positively influence for christ everyone everywhere every time and the word the i word influence sometimes impact sometimes inspire but to positively inspire to positively influence to positively impact everyone for christ everyone everywhere every time in shorthand uh one of the ways i think about this in my own brain is that i'm a ceo a chief elevation officer that my my desire and my job is to elevate people just like when you get on an elevator it takes you from one plane up to the next i want to be an elevator in people's life so when they come in contact with me they feel like they were lifted a floor or two toward their purpose toward their calling toward whatever god has has for them to take them higher and higher i never want people to get in and end up going down i want to be a lifter in europe that's what they call them they call them a lift so that's one of my uh sort of brain thoughts when i'm interacting i just want to be a chief elevation officer in your life i want to be able to lift you up and help you get to wherever it is to that you can get using my abilities my personality my voice my platforms my resources how can i lift you up a personal mission statement is for you and so probably within the 30 years i may have mentioned it less than five times because it's not for others it's only as an example to share with you that might help you figure out what yours is then you might ask well how do i develop one and that's a whole seminar in and of itself but let me just give you this tip take a piece of paper and write a whole page about your passions what you want to do the impact you want to make and then what you do is you take that that page and then you squeeze it down to a couple of paragraphs and when you get to a couple of paragraphs then you try to get it from two or three paragraphs to one paragraph once you get it to one paragraph that's when you might share it with a couple of close people and then you go wordsmith it to get it down to a sentence because it should be really just one phrase or sentence that motivates you that you can remember no there's no test there's no a or b or c on this there's no grades this is for you and you're not going to remember a page you're not going to remember a paragraph but you will remember a point a phrase or a sentence and that's why i have mine to positively influence for christ everyone everywhere every time here's the fifth thing you can do i've given you four take the shape seminar talk to people in your life and ask them what your best gifts are for your greatest impact take the gallup strengths test and learn what your top five are and if you've already done that then find someone that you can talk to the consult and we have people here but also gallup has people you can actually pay for it your company can pay for it write a personal mission statement this is for you and then lastly take the 30 hours volunteer service challenge you'll remember last week we had 30 different challenges that you can go to bridgeway dot cc slash 30 the word 30 and there will be 30 different challenges and i asked you to choose three well one of the ones you could choose is the the 30 hour volunteer challenge where you say i'm going to serve for 30 volunteer hours and when you click that you'll join a group and there'll be a challenge champion there and guess what they'll tell you ways that you can serve in the church you can be able to talk to other people and figure out maybe there's some ways that i can serve in the kingdom of god that i haven't thought about that has not been promoted talk to someone to say here's how you can get started using some of your gifts for the lord so those are the five ways now how many of you are going to choose one of those just wave right there yep just wave i'm going to choose one of those i'm going to choose two of those all right what are we trying to do we're trying to help you become mighty and function in the way you operate for christ do you want the rest of your life to operate for you and not for god or do you want to take everything that's fun in your life and give it over to god and let god give it back to you be funner than ever but also it will please him and you will produce much fruit let me leave you with the final verse before i turn it over to pastor michener it's first corinthians 15 58 this is what it says therefore my brothers sisters are included be steadfast immovable always abounding in the work of the lord knowing that in the lord your labor is not in vain when you serve god your labor is not in vain when i gave my life to christ at 18 and my life began to come on point i realized that god could use me in mighty ways if i would just surrender to him and the ride has been fun it's been fulfilling it's been frustrating one thing i can say it's been fruitful and i've tried to be faithful and i pray today that you will as well in jesus name amen and amen you

Channel: Bridgeway Community Church

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Keywords: #BridgewayMD, #MyBridgeway

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Length: 36min 18sec (2178 seconds)

Published: Sun Sep 19 2021