Bridge Church
Sunday, August 4, 2019
Proverbs has a lot to say about work and success. It's a simple formula but that doesn't make it easy.
Locations & Times
Bridge Church - Wauk
1314 S Grand Ave, Waukesha, WI 53186, USA
Sunday 8:15 AM
Sunday 9:30 AM
Sunday 11:00 AM
Proverbs
Work, Favor & Success
Question to ponder:
Would you rather be rich and miserable or poor and happy?
Harken back to the joy series. True joy is not in riches but godliness with contentment.
Then what is success? Today Proverbs is going to teach us about success, not necessarily money.
What is the laziest thing you can think of?
Banana slicer? (or any number of “timesaving” kitchen gadgets)
Watching others play video games?
Hard Work Plus God’s Favor Equals Success.
You need both to get SUCCESS
It affects parenting, marriage, witnessing, social influence, occupational work, etc.
Today’s message is about work. What you work, how you work, and how to succeed.
I found 65 verses in Proverbs that related to work ethics and I probably missed some.
If you’re unemployed please do not take this message as an indictment. Unemployment does not automatically mean laziness. This message is more about how we work at everything we do. Your job is only a part of that.
This message ties very closely to Pastor’s message two weeks ago on finances. How you manage your finances is important to God and it’s a reflection of who you are and you can hinder or help your finances by using kingdom principles. Today, we are going to deal with work. Work and finances are closely related so much of what Pastor Todd preached on applies here too. So go back and listen to that message if you haven’t heard it.
I procrastinate. My wife told me to treat the weeds when the snow melted. Five weeks later when the second wave of dandelions has already scattered their seeds all over my yard and the neighbors’ I finally treated the lawn. But now it was too late and the seeds had already taken root so I’ll be dealing with those next year as will my next door neighbors. This is not the kind of neighboring Pastor Todd has been encouraging us to practice.
I’ll make a goal and a year later I haven’t even started.
MAIN POINT
13:4 A sluggard’s appetite is never filled, but the desires of the diligent are fully satisfied.
So here’s the formula for success:
Hard work plus God’s favor equals success.
We don’t want to work hard. We want a faster, easier way to do everything. Smartphones are a perfect example.
We also underestimate the importance of God’s favor over the work we do. We buy the lie that we can get anything if we work hard enough.
We also lose sight of what success means. We think it’s stuff and money and power because we think that’s what we need to be happy.
CAVIAT
Before I unpack this, remember Proverbs is poetry literature which is wise advice not promises. It is generally true ways of living, not cause and effect guarantees. I am NOT saying that if you check these boxes on your God list that you will get rich. First, what you consider success might not be the same thing God considers success. You might be hoping for money but God might want to bless you with peace and joy.
28:6 Better the poor whose walk is blameless than the rich whose ways are perverse.
Second of all, a relationship with God is not as mechanical as you fulfilling your job and he cashes in your paycheck of blessing. Imagine a friendship, a marriage, or a parenting relationship like that. Imagine saying to your buddy, “Okay, we went to the mall twice, but you missed two coffee dates last month so I’m only going to help you move out of your old apartment, not into your new apartment.”
HARD WORK
Work is it’s own reward
Starting a hard work is hard but looking back on a job well done is satisfying
In today's verse the diligence and hard work itself is rewarding not just the end result
The joy is in the journey.
13:4 A sluggard’s appetite is never filled, but the desires of the diligent are fully satisfied.
Like I tell my kids… Anything worth anything costs something. If it comes free or easy, you probably don’t want it.
WE HAVE A ROLE TO PLAY
We don’t obey the ten commandments and then God dumps success into our laps. We have responsibilities. You can’t pray for a new job but never fill out a job application. You can’t pray for your kids to mature but never teach them anything yourself. You can’t pray to get thin but never change your eating habits.
My younger prayer was for God to help me resist temptation and God said no. That’s my part. He’s not a puppet master forcing his hand into the backs of our heads like puppets making our arms and legs move to his rhythm. We have to choose to do what he asks. THEN he empowers us to do it.
WORK GOD'S PLAN NOT YOURS
The alternator in your car generates all the electricity your car needs to run. If I remove my tire and decide to install the alternator in the wheel well where the wheel is supposed to go, it can work as hard as it can and it will never succeed as a wheel.
God wired us a certain way and gave us specific jobs to do. Your work cannot succeed if you’re working your plan instead of his. If you’ve been working hard and seeing no results, maybe your working the wrong plan.
God called the prophet Jonah to preach to an evil town called Nineveh. Jonah ran the opposite direction and boarded a ship for Tarshish. Jonah’s Tarshish plan ended in near shipwreck, near drowning, and being swallowed by a fish. God will not bless your mission to Tarshish if he’s called you to Nineveh. Work the right plan.
23:4-5 Do not wear yourself out to get rich; do not trust your own cleverness.
16:25 There is a way that appears to be right, but in the end it leads to death.
WORK IS NOT EXHAUSTION
Are you exhausted? Is the thought of working hard exhausting? Have you been working hard spinning your wheels and becoming overwhelmed, drowning in the amount of work you do… That’s not God. Come to me you who are weak and heavy laden and I will give you rest for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Working God’s plan is working smarter and not harder. Being a workaholic is not godly or praiseworthy. It’s sinful. God commanded rest. If you add it all up, Besides Sabbath days, God gave his people 37 days of holiday. If you add in the 52 Sabbath days they were commanded to rest, they were not working on 89 days. That’s ¼ of the year. Working without a break is NOT okay, it is a direct disobedience of God’s command to rest. But the days you ARE working, you’re supposed to work hard, working as if you’re working for your God.
We were created in God’s image and he worked HARD FOR 6 days to create the world. But he also took the 7thday off.
HOW DO YOU WORK HARD?
Avoid the pitfalls
Laziness
24:33-34 A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest— 34 and poverty will come on you like a thief and scarcity like an armed man.
Seeking Pleasure/Gluttony/Drunkenness
21:17 Whoever loves pleasure will become poor; whoever loves wine and olive oil will never be rich.
Get rich quick impulses that promise profit without work
21:5 The plans of the diligent lead to profit as surely as haste leads to poverty.
Don’t make excuses
26:13 A sluggard says, “There’s a lion in the road, a fierce lion roaming the streets!”
Don’t procrastinate
14:23 All hard work brings a profit, but mere talk leads only to poverty.
Work is a form of worship. We work for God so work hard and avoid these pitfalls.
Colossians 3:23 Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters.
GOD’S FAVOR
GOD STACKS THE DECK
Hard work and time management is only half the battle. Hard work without God’s favor is like running on a treadmill. You’re huffing and puffing but you’re not going anywhere. God holds all the cards and he deals them out based on how your life is honoring him.
God holds the cards. Like a poker dealer that stacks the deck, God helps his people win.
Pagans work just like we do. But it is God who chooses to bless or curse the work based on our faithfulness to him. Like Joseph and Daniel, God‘s favor can rest on everything we do if we are faithful to him instead of greedily pursuing our own gain. It is not a prosperity gospel that promises riches. It is a kingdom principle that promises provision, blessing, and success.
JOSEPH
He was sold into slavery but everything he did as a slave and a prisoner succeeded. He was promoted to being in charge everywhere he was.
DANIEL
As a foreigner everything he touched succeeded. People were so jealous of his success that they had him arrested and thrown into the lion’s den. But God even rescued him from that.
When God holds all the money, and success on earth, how do you think he’s going to distribute that? To those who honor him. Why does one person succeed and another does not? It’s not luck, it’s God stacking the deck.
GOD’S FAVOR IS NOT
God’s favor is not getting what you want from God. It’s God getting what he wants from you. This was a constant struggle for ancient Israel and if you remember the Kryptonite series, they struggled with worshiping the ONE TRUE GOD in the same way that the pagan nations around them worshipped their idols. They did favors for their idols to convince their idols to give them what they wanted. Bless my crops, help our side with the war, curse my enemies. When we approach God like a cosmic Santa Clause rubbing the lamp to get our wishes we completely miss the point. We did not create God to serve us. God created us to serve him. God’s favor is a God, infinitely smarter than us, who loves us more than we could imagine, who can bring about impossible blessings giving us HIS best and perfect plan for our lives.
Don’t ask God to join and bless what you’re doing. Join what God’s doing and you will be blessed. God’s favor is not you getting what you want from God. It’s God getting what he wants from you.
HOW DO YOU GAIN GOD’S FAVOR?
Relationship
22:4 Humility is the fear of the Lord; its wages are riches and honor and life.
Work his plans not yours
10:22 The blessing of the Lord brings wealth, without painful toil for it.
Righteousness
10:2-3 Ill-gotten treasures have no lasting value, but righteousness delivers from death. 3 The Lord does not let the righteous go hungry, but he thwarts the craving of the wicked.
Generosity
11:24 One person gives freely, yet gains even more; another withholds unduly, but comes to poverty.
Faithfulness
28:20 A faithful person will be richly blessed, but one eager to get rich will not go unpunished
Work God’s plans God’s way to honor God and you gain his favor doing his things his way.
Relationship, working HIS plans, righteousness, generosity, faithfulness
SUCCESS
God’s definition of success might not be the same as yours. Remember in our joy series how joy is not dependent on circumstances. I used Joseph and Daniel as examples but they were both prisoners living an unfair difficult life in captivity. They were successful, but at the things God had called them to during that season of life. God placed them in HIS situations and when they honored him with their work he poured success on everything they touched.
SUCCESS IS NOT
NOT a prosperity Gospel. This is not a formula to get money. Money can be a part of it but money is not the point. Would you rather be rich and miserable or poor and happy? It’s not about how much you have. It is about how satisfied you are with what you have. Godliness with contentment is great gain. But blessings still come to the faithful.
CHANDA’S SUCCESS
I present to you an example from my life.
In Michigan we faced poverty, wilderness, and testing which produced the blessing of perseverance, trust, faith, and joy not dependent on circumstances. When we moved to Portland my wife fulfilled a calling by god to publish a book. Then prosperity hit us where Chanda’s hard work as an author paid off because we were faithful to him and he distributed favor for that season of our life. We eliminated our debt. Now we are no longer getting as much money as we did in Portland, but we don’t miss the big bucks. We learned in Michigan how to find joy without it. And now that Portland’s prosperity eliminated our debt, we don’t have as much stress managing what we have.
Point: Chanda wasn’t lazy, making excuses, procrastinating, seeking pleasure, or trying to get rich quick. Chanda worked just as hard as all her other author friends, but she had God’s favor which cannot be produced by hard work. She was following the path God laid in front of her. She had a relationship with God, faithful, righteous, and generous. These are the things that gain God’s favor. Again, not as a cause and effect contract to produce money, but as a relationship with a loving father that wants to bless the children that gratefully reside within his kingdom home, children who love and trust and obey him.
28:6 Better the poor whose walk is blameless than the rich whose ways are perverse.
Proverbs 31 woman is a good description of success.
31:13 She selects wool and flax and works with eager hands.
31:15 She gets up while it is still night; she provides food for her family and portions for her female servants.
31:17 She sets about her work vigorously; her arms are strong for her tasks
31:20 She opens her arms to the poor and extends her hands to the needy
31:27 She watches over the affairs of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness.
31:28-31 Her children arise and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her: 29 “Many women do noble things, but you surpass them all.” 30 Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. 31 Honor her for all that her hands have done, and let her works bring her praise at the city gate.
CONCLUSION
Before we close there’s one very important component I have to make sure you have.
God’s Work, God’s Favor, God’s Success…
Unless you have a relationship with God you have no access to any of this. Maybe you’ve been going to church or listening to church podcasts thinking it’s just uplifting positive advice. It’s time to stop dancing around the issue and make a hardline decision to come all the way in and follow Jesus.
Hard Work
Which of these pitfalls do you need to eliminate from your life?
Laziness, seeking pleasure, get rich quick impulses, making excuses, procrastination
God’s Favor
What do you need more of to gain God’s favor?
Relationship, working HIS plans, righteousness, generosity, faithfulness
Success
Do you need to reframe what you view as success?
Replace desires for money with desires for God’s best plans to unfold in your life.
God’s favor is not you getting what you want from God. It’s God getting what he wants from you.
Now let’s go out and start succeeding so much that like Joesph, like Daniel, like my wife Chanda, people take notice and say, “Why do you always get all the breaks?” Then we can point them to Jesus.
Let’s pray
NEXT STEP
If you have taken a step of faith and prayed and received Christ as your Lord and Savior, we encourage you to check out these video's that will help you with your next step.
http://bridgechurch.net/next/
ONLINE GIVING
If you prefer to do your giving online, here is a convenient link to do that. Another option is to send a text to: 262.649.8294. You will get a text back with a link to set up text giving. After initial set-up, all you do to give to the general fund is text $25 (or whatever amount) to 262.649.8294. If you want to give to a specific ministry, text #funds and you will receive a text back with the different funds available to give to. As ALWAYS, THANK YOU so much for your giving!
https://www.eservicepayments.com/cgi-bin/Vanco_ver3.vps?appver3=Fi1giPL8kwX_Oe1AO50jRjxyT67qdAwTR5EVPjZmeXChjXsUKRLlmI4vCU4-rZZZ2EvVVAEjqawDomKT1pboudNPGLPhhZpU_4KIlLWvTu4=&ver=3
Work, Favor & Success
Question to ponder:
Would you rather be rich and miserable or poor and happy?
Harken back to the joy series. True joy is not in riches but godliness with contentment.
Then what is success? Today Proverbs is going to teach us about success, not necessarily money.
What is the laziest thing you can think of?
Banana slicer? (or any number of “timesaving” kitchen gadgets)
Watching others play video games?
Hard Work Plus God’s Favor Equals Success.
You need both to get SUCCESS
It affects parenting, marriage, witnessing, social influence, occupational work, etc.
Today’s message is about work. What you work, how you work, and how to succeed.
I found 65 verses in Proverbs that related to work ethics and I probably missed some.
If you’re unemployed please do not take this message as an indictment. Unemployment does not automatically mean laziness. This message is more about how we work at everything we do. Your job is only a part of that.
This message ties very closely to Pastor’s message two weeks ago on finances. How you manage your finances is important to God and it’s a reflection of who you are and you can hinder or help your finances by using kingdom principles. Today, we are going to deal with work. Work and finances are closely related so much of what Pastor Todd preached on applies here too. So go back and listen to that message if you haven’t heard it.
I procrastinate. My wife told me to treat the weeds when the snow melted. Five weeks later when the second wave of dandelions has already scattered their seeds all over my yard and the neighbors’ I finally treated the lawn. But now it was too late and the seeds had already taken root so I’ll be dealing with those next year as will my next door neighbors. This is not the kind of neighboring Pastor Todd has been encouraging us to practice.
I’ll make a goal and a year later I haven’t even started.
MAIN POINT
13:4 A sluggard’s appetite is never filled, but the desires of the diligent are fully satisfied.
So here’s the formula for success:
Hard work plus God’s favor equals success.
We don’t want to work hard. We want a faster, easier way to do everything. Smartphones are a perfect example.
We also underestimate the importance of God’s favor over the work we do. We buy the lie that we can get anything if we work hard enough.
We also lose sight of what success means. We think it’s stuff and money and power because we think that’s what we need to be happy.
CAVIAT
Before I unpack this, remember Proverbs is poetry literature which is wise advice not promises. It is generally true ways of living, not cause and effect guarantees. I am NOT saying that if you check these boxes on your God list that you will get rich. First, what you consider success might not be the same thing God considers success. You might be hoping for money but God might want to bless you with peace and joy.
28:6 Better the poor whose walk is blameless than the rich whose ways are perverse.
Second of all, a relationship with God is not as mechanical as you fulfilling your job and he cashes in your paycheck of blessing. Imagine a friendship, a marriage, or a parenting relationship like that. Imagine saying to your buddy, “Okay, we went to the mall twice, but you missed two coffee dates last month so I’m only going to help you move out of your old apartment, not into your new apartment.”
HARD WORK
Work is it’s own reward
Starting a hard work is hard but looking back on a job well done is satisfying
In today's verse the diligence and hard work itself is rewarding not just the end result
The joy is in the journey.
13:4 A sluggard’s appetite is never filled, but the desires of the diligent are fully satisfied.
Like I tell my kids… Anything worth anything costs something. If it comes free or easy, you probably don’t want it.
WE HAVE A ROLE TO PLAY
We don’t obey the ten commandments and then God dumps success into our laps. We have responsibilities. You can’t pray for a new job but never fill out a job application. You can’t pray for your kids to mature but never teach them anything yourself. You can’t pray to get thin but never change your eating habits.
My younger prayer was for God to help me resist temptation and God said no. That’s my part. He’s not a puppet master forcing his hand into the backs of our heads like puppets making our arms and legs move to his rhythm. We have to choose to do what he asks. THEN he empowers us to do it.
WORK GOD'S PLAN NOT YOURS
The alternator in your car generates all the electricity your car needs to run. If I remove my tire and decide to install the alternator in the wheel well where the wheel is supposed to go, it can work as hard as it can and it will never succeed as a wheel.
God wired us a certain way and gave us specific jobs to do. Your work cannot succeed if you’re working your plan instead of his. If you’ve been working hard and seeing no results, maybe your working the wrong plan.
God called the prophet Jonah to preach to an evil town called Nineveh. Jonah ran the opposite direction and boarded a ship for Tarshish. Jonah’s Tarshish plan ended in near shipwreck, near drowning, and being swallowed by a fish. God will not bless your mission to Tarshish if he’s called you to Nineveh. Work the right plan.
23:4-5 Do not wear yourself out to get rich; do not trust your own cleverness.
16:25 There is a way that appears to be right, but in the end it leads to death.
WORK IS NOT EXHAUSTION
Are you exhausted? Is the thought of working hard exhausting? Have you been working hard spinning your wheels and becoming overwhelmed, drowning in the amount of work you do… That’s not God. Come to me you who are weak and heavy laden and I will give you rest for my yoke is easy and my burden is light. Working God’s plan is working smarter and not harder. Being a workaholic is not godly or praiseworthy. It’s sinful. God commanded rest. If you add it all up, Besides Sabbath days, God gave his people 37 days of holiday. If you add in the 52 Sabbath days they were commanded to rest, they were not working on 89 days. That’s ¼ of the year. Working without a break is NOT okay, it is a direct disobedience of God’s command to rest. But the days you ARE working, you’re supposed to work hard, working as if you’re working for your God.
We were created in God’s image and he worked HARD FOR 6 days to create the world. But he also took the 7thday off.
HOW DO YOU WORK HARD?
Avoid the pitfalls
Laziness
24:33-34 A little sleep, a little slumber, a little folding of the hands to rest— 34 and poverty will come on you like a thief and scarcity like an armed man.
Seeking Pleasure/Gluttony/Drunkenness
21:17 Whoever loves pleasure will become poor; whoever loves wine and olive oil will never be rich.
Get rich quick impulses that promise profit without work
21:5 The plans of the diligent lead to profit as surely as haste leads to poverty.
Don’t make excuses
26:13 A sluggard says, “There’s a lion in the road, a fierce lion roaming the streets!”
Don’t procrastinate
14:23 All hard work brings a profit, but mere talk leads only to poverty.
Work is a form of worship. We work for God so work hard and avoid these pitfalls.
Colossians 3:23 Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for human masters.
GOD’S FAVOR
GOD STACKS THE DECK
Hard work and time management is only half the battle. Hard work without God’s favor is like running on a treadmill. You’re huffing and puffing but you’re not going anywhere. God holds all the cards and he deals them out based on how your life is honoring him.
God holds the cards. Like a poker dealer that stacks the deck, God helps his people win.
Pagans work just like we do. But it is God who chooses to bless or curse the work based on our faithfulness to him. Like Joseph and Daniel, God‘s favor can rest on everything we do if we are faithful to him instead of greedily pursuing our own gain. It is not a prosperity gospel that promises riches. It is a kingdom principle that promises provision, blessing, and success.
JOSEPH
He was sold into slavery but everything he did as a slave and a prisoner succeeded. He was promoted to being in charge everywhere he was.
DANIEL
As a foreigner everything he touched succeeded. People were so jealous of his success that they had him arrested and thrown into the lion’s den. But God even rescued him from that.
When God holds all the money, and success on earth, how do you think he’s going to distribute that? To those who honor him. Why does one person succeed and another does not? It’s not luck, it’s God stacking the deck.
GOD’S FAVOR IS NOT
God’s favor is not getting what you want from God. It’s God getting what he wants from you. This was a constant struggle for ancient Israel and if you remember the Kryptonite series, they struggled with worshiping the ONE TRUE GOD in the same way that the pagan nations around them worshipped their idols. They did favors for their idols to convince their idols to give them what they wanted. Bless my crops, help our side with the war, curse my enemies. When we approach God like a cosmic Santa Clause rubbing the lamp to get our wishes we completely miss the point. We did not create God to serve us. God created us to serve him. God’s favor is a God, infinitely smarter than us, who loves us more than we could imagine, who can bring about impossible blessings giving us HIS best and perfect plan for our lives.
Don’t ask God to join and bless what you’re doing. Join what God’s doing and you will be blessed. God’s favor is not you getting what you want from God. It’s God getting what he wants from you.
HOW DO YOU GAIN GOD’S FAVOR?
Relationship
22:4 Humility is the fear of the Lord; its wages are riches and honor and life.
Work his plans not yours
10:22 The blessing of the Lord brings wealth, without painful toil for it.
Righteousness
10:2-3 Ill-gotten treasures have no lasting value, but righteousness delivers from death. 3 The Lord does not let the righteous go hungry, but he thwarts the craving of the wicked.
Generosity
11:24 One person gives freely, yet gains even more; another withholds unduly, but comes to poverty.
Faithfulness
28:20 A faithful person will be richly blessed, but one eager to get rich will not go unpunished
Work God’s plans God’s way to honor God and you gain his favor doing his things his way.
Relationship, working HIS plans, righteousness, generosity, faithfulness
SUCCESS
God’s definition of success might not be the same as yours. Remember in our joy series how joy is not dependent on circumstances. I used Joseph and Daniel as examples but they were both prisoners living an unfair difficult life in captivity. They were successful, but at the things God had called them to during that season of life. God placed them in HIS situations and when they honored him with their work he poured success on everything they touched.
SUCCESS IS NOT
NOT a prosperity Gospel. This is not a formula to get money. Money can be a part of it but money is not the point. Would you rather be rich and miserable or poor and happy? It’s not about how much you have. It is about how satisfied you are with what you have. Godliness with contentment is great gain. But blessings still come to the faithful.
CHANDA’S SUCCESS
I present to you an example from my life.
In Michigan we faced poverty, wilderness, and testing which produced the blessing of perseverance, trust, faith, and joy not dependent on circumstances. When we moved to Portland my wife fulfilled a calling by god to publish a book. Then prosperity hit us where Chanda’s hard work as an author paid off because we were faithful to him and he distributed favor for that season of our life. We eliminated our debt. Now we are no longer getting as much money as we did in Portland, but we don’t miss the big bucks. We learned in Michigan how to find joy without it. And now that Portland’s prosperity eliminated our debt, we don’t have as much stress managing what we have.
Point: Chanda wasn’t lazy, making excuses, procrastinating, seeking pleasure, or trying to get rich quick. Chanda worked just as hard as all her other author friends, but she had God’s favor which cannot be produced by hard work. She was following the path God laid in front of her. She had a relationship with God, faithful, righteous, and generous. These are the things that gain God’s favor. Again, not as a cause and effect contract to produce money, but as a relationship with a loving father that wants to bless the children that gratefully reside within his kingdom home, children who love and trust and obey him.
28:6 Better the poor whose walk is blameless than the rich whose ways are perverse.
Proverbs 31 woman is a good description of success.
31:13 She selects wool and flax and works with eager hands.
31:15 She gets up while it is still night; she provides food for her family and portions for her female servants.
31:17 She sets about her work vigorously; her arms are strong for her tasks
31:20 She opens her arms to the poor and extends her hands to the needy
31:27 She watches over the affairs of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness.
31:28-31 Her children arise and call her blessed; her husband also, and he praises her: 29 “Many women do noble things, but you surpass them all.” 30 Charm is deceptive, and beauty is fleeting; but a woman who fears the Lord is to be praised. 31 Honor her for all that her hands have done, and let her works bring her praise at the city gate.
CONCLUSION
Before we close there’s one very important component I have to make sure you have.
God’s Work, God’s Favor, God’s Success…
Unless you have a relationship with God you have no access to any of this. Maybe you’ve been going to church or listening to church podcasts thinking it’s just uplifting positive advice. It’s time to stop dancing around the issue and make a hardline decision to come all the way in and follow Jesus.
Hard Work
Which of these pitfalls do you need to eliminate from your life?
Laziness, seeking pleasure, get rich quick impulses, making excuses, procrastination
God’s Favor
What do you need more of to gain God’s favor?
Relationship, working HIS plans, righteousness, generosity, faithfulness
Success
Do you need to reframe what you view as success?
Replace desires for money with desires for God’s best plans to unfold in your life.
God’s favor is not you getting what you want from God. It’s God getting what he wants from you.
Now let’s go out and start succeeding so much that like Joesph, like Daniel, like my wife Chanda, people take notice and say, “Why do you always get all the breaks?” Then we can point them to Jesus.
Let’s pray
NEXT STEP
If you have taken a step of faith and prayed and received Christ as your Lord and Savior, we encourage you to check out these video's that will help you with your next step.
http://bridgechurch.net/next/
ONLINE GIVING
If you prefer to do your giving online, here is a convenient link to do that. Another option is to send a text to: 262.649.8294. You will get a text back with a link to set up text giving. After initial set-up, all you do to give to the general fund is text $25 (or whatever amount) to 262.649.8294. If you want to give to a specific ministry, text #funds and you will receive a text back with the different funds available to give to. As ALWAYS, THANK YOU so much for your giving!
https://www.eservicepayments.com/cgi-bin/Vanco_ver3.vps?appver3=Fi1giPL8kwX_Oe1AO50jRjxyT67qdAwTR5EVPjZmeXChjXsUKRLlmI4vCU4-rZZZ2EvVVAEjqawDomKT1pboudNPGLPhhZpU_4KIlLWvTu4=&ver=3