Weekly Encouragement
Good Friday Everyone,
Weekly blessings to all. We close of our work week and prepare for a well-deserved couple of days of rest until we do it all over again. At Bethel Baptist we will return to a more regular schedule as the Summer of 2024 comes to an end. This coming Lord’s Day, a most important service will be upon us. We will share in fellowship and worship in the morning, and we will meet again at 6:00 PM for a very special evening service. This Sunday evening, we will ordain four men of Bethel Baptist into deacon service. These men are following God’s call upon their life as elected by our congregation to serve as leaders in our fellowship. Being a deacon is never a mark of achieved worthiness, but it is willing obedience to serve. We have four committed, humble, honorable, and godly men who have been chosen to serve our congregation. As pastor, the Bethel Baptist deacons are my greatest encouragers, and my first line of support as we follow God daily and envision the future together. Make every effort to join us this Sunday evening as we ordain these four men God has given us. A fellowship time will follow.
We have enjoyed a special Summer as we watched our U.S.A. Olympians compete for gold medals. We have won many. But the brightest lights at this year’s Summer Olympics have been the Christian testimonies by our most famous athletes. What a blessed connection we make with our brothers and sisters in Christ who are representing not only our country, but our God. The most striking testimony was given multiple times by our women’s 400-Meter hurdle gold medalist, Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone. Sydney truly has her spiritual priorities far ahead of her earned accomplishments. Sydney possesses all the physical attributes to win gold medals, but infinity more importantly she has already won, “The prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” (Philippians 3:14).
The Olympics is a competitive environment where the world’s best athletes compete against one another to win a coveted gold medal. The athletes sweat a lot, bleed more than they should, suffer underserved injuries, and work incredibly hard to earn Olympic medals. The Christian is not exercising for hours, running countless laps, lifting pounds of weights, nor repeating the same routine over and over again. But the Christian is exercising something divinely profound in order to win the “upward call of God,” something far more precious than an Olympic medal.
As the Christian competes in this life, we exercise our faith constantly and without ceasing. The Christian’s faith is God’s gift just as much as the Olympic athlete’s physical abilities are His gift to them. The success of our life comes from a healthy and functional faith in God. The name of our next sermon series is called “Functional Faith.” There are many Biblical examples of men and women who exercised their faith in life and won, “the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.” One such man was Elisha. The prophet Elisha was a great man of God who applied functional faith in God every day. Before Elisha began his incredible ministry he was mentored and trained under the great prophet Elijah.
Elisha was not found reading the scrolls in the Temple, leading a spiritual revival in the streets, or serving the less fortunate, nor teaching others to do the same. Elisha was found plowing a field. Elisha had to learn just like us how to exercise his faith. As Elisha exercised his faith, he became strong, he stayed strong, and others saw God’s power in his life. Elisha went from being a godly farmer, to having a functional faith governing his daily life. We exercise a simple faith when we get up every morning, switch on the lights, turn on the water facet, start the car, and drive down the road. We exercise good faith when we read the Bible, pray, and worship in church corporately. Imagine if we transformed our simple and our good faith into functional faith for daily living. Functional faith is encouraging others as easily as you turn on a light switch, or helping, giving, loving, or testifying to others just like the expectation of water from a twisted facet. We don’t think about water and electricity, but we know it’s there for us. Functional faith is Loving God and Loving People because we know God is always with us. Everyone wants you to exercise your functional faith, “They just don’t know it yet!” This is what we must learn in the Christian life. People want to believe. We can tell them who to believe. Elisha learned functional faith, and we can too. Come this Sunday. See God move Sunday evening. Invite someone to join you.
In Christ Jesus,
Pastor Michael
