My Purpose Must Fulfill God's Purpose | Associate Pastor Chad Erickson
by Chad Erickson
First Apostolic Church of Maryville (Maryville, TN)
Kind: teaching
Scripture: Matthew 28:18-20, Romans 8:28, Proverbs 29:18, Joel 2:28, Acts 2:16-17, Mark 16:15, Acts 1:8, John 15:16, Ephesians 4:16, Luke 19:13, Acts 13:36, Romans 8:28

Source: https://acts238.life/repository/sermons/chad-erickson--my-purpose-must-fulfill-god-s-purpose
Published by Acts 2:38 Life from the sermon transcript on that page.
Free to copy and share with attribution.

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hallelujah hallelujah hallelujah stay with me to your feet tonight praise the lord everybody amen thank you worship team always our top shelf around here and so appreciative of our of the worship the leaves uh leaves this building enters the throne room of god amen uh turn with me to matthew 28 and verse 18 gonna read a very familiar uh text in your hearing and then we'll uh kind of move into our message or our bible study welcome welcome first of all welcome to our midweek bible study uh we are so privileged as a people of god to come together and study the word of god and as pastor nolan said if this is your first time thank you for being here with us it means the world to us that you are here worse being with us tonight um i do want to say uh pastor and sister carpenter our senior pastor they are in mississippi uh this week they're preaching there a matter of fact it is the uh the home church and i say that uh very lightly but it's the home church of brother cade abbott uh where he grew up and where he is from uh we know this is this is his home church but but where he grew up where he grew up uh pastor sister carpenter are there ministering and they'll be returning they're returning here the next day or so uh back here to maryville uh isn't the the church decorated so beautiful do you feel the spirit do you feel this listen i feel i walked in tonight and just uh just something about just something about that christmas feel the celebration of the birth of christ i want to thank sister lauren uh brother zach pastor zach hammond sister lauren brother and sister carpenter and that is nolan and flannery carpenter i want to thank them i also want to thank brother cheshire we call him our ladder monkey because he ain't scared and he did all the all the upper hanging and we appreciate that brother demi broome uh he is such a great graphic designer he designs here in the sanctuary and for our for our led walls and just so thankful for a talented not only i mean we got talent in so many different places but i'm so thankful that we have talented decorators amen this makes me feel good this makes it's just a good feeling go ahead put your hands down it's a good thing to walk into the house of god and know that time has been spent on on the house of god well i want to read in your hearing just a couple passages and then we'll move into i got a prayer request and we'll kind of move into service tonight into the message matthew 28 18 jesus came and spake unto them saying all power is given unto me in heaven and in earth go ye therefore teach all nations baptize them in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy ghost teaching them to observe all things whatsoever i have commanded you and lo i am with you always even until the end of the world amen and then one more verse in your hearing romans chapter 8 verse 28 and it'll be on the screen in front of you bible simply says and we know that all things work together for good to them that love god to them who are the called according to his purpose i'm just going to simply title my bible study tonight my purpose must fulfill god's purpose all right my purpose my personal individual purpose must fulfill the same purpose that god has for his church amen before we before we're seated let's pray together and i want to bring a special need before your sister sister macintosh many of you know sister mackintosh will she's been a a faithful member of this church for years um until she um has had uh tumors in her body uh for the last i don't know how how long uh but i do know that she's been on on chemotherapy for for quite some time and we got a report today from the doctor uh that the chemo that she's been on is no longer working uh the tumors are are getting larger and so they're gonna be moving her to a different chemo or into different treatment let's just have prayer for her tonight i believe that god can make a way for healer to take place in her body do you believe that tonight come on let's pray together father we love you and father we're thankful lord god oh for your word oh god that you're about to give the church tonight lord god that you're about lord god to minister through me tonight but god before we minister god we bring sister macintosh before you lord god i i want you lord god at her bedside tonight god let her know that you're able to do exceedingly abundantly above all that we can ask or think lord more than we can imagine god we don't understand tumors we don't understand lord god cancer in the body lord but you understand those things and lord god you are the cure to all disease you're the cure to all sickness and lord we need you right now lord god just to step into her room god and heal her body lord god let a miracle begin to take place right now let something happen signs and wonders oh god begin to take place right now that where she would know that she is healed lord i pray that she would feel those tumors begin to dissolve in her body i pray in jesus name lord let it be done let healing take place i feel the spirit of faith breaking out in this house tonight i feel faith rising up on god we call out your name jesus because it is in your name the only name that brings power in healing lord that we pray in jesus name and everyone shout amen and you may be seated tonight in jesus name amen and i'm going to believe for a good report amen from sister macintosh i do want to bring i do want to bring another uh a good report uh pastor carpenter got a call this week uh somebody wanted to get baptized and and and we baptized i think uh these waters are are troubled uh in baptism i believe it feels like every every two or three days of the week we're putting somebody down in the water uh but this time was a little bit special a little more special because it was a 97 year old man isn't that awesome saw his need to be baptized in jesus name and went down in the water amen for the remission of his sins and uh so thankful for that just so such a such a cool thing and i got to think about that today and remembered it was my uh my grandmother's 99th birthday today which is pretty cool um i got to you know i'm just i'm like this this is just how i think um i was like okay i i put in my phone i was like what's 2021-99 and then i felt like an idiot like oh gosh that was dumb so i looked up i looked up 1927 and i joke i looked up her her birth year and wouldn't you know and this craziest thing i put it on facebook today but the craziest thing alexander graham bell died the same year she was born does that not feel like forever ago i mean i remember i remember learning i remember in history and i i i don't feel young i don't know some 30 years ago probably learning in history and i thought i thought that was like 500 years ago now we have uh computers in our pocket i guarantee he never never dreamed that would happen right alexander graham bell well i i just want to just take um just that just as a time to speak on a subject that i believe is very dear to the people of god i know that many times and if you're like me i've heard people make the statement i just can't figure out what my purpose is anybody ever heard that say anybody ever said that i heard somebody say it just you'll get a phone call and somebody will be frustrated they'll be discouraged they'll say i just don't know what my purpose is well uh the fact of the matter is that's that's a big subject when you think about it because everybody has has a purpose everybody uh everybody under the sound of my voice has probably if you're like me has been frustrated because they were like god i feel the call i know i'm in the right place i i know i'm living where you want me to live i'm going to church where you want me to go to church i know i'm i'm i'm doing god what you want me to do i'm in i'm in the flow i'm where you want me to be but somewhere sometimes we we wonder what is the purpose and i believe that the frustration and the distraction discouragement are all symptoms of life that is lacking vision all right follow me with this matter of fact if you want to open your bibles proverbs 29 18 you i'm sure you could probably quote it but proverbs 29 18 simply says where there is no vision the people perish but he that keepeth the law happy is he i looked it up another translation and it said if people can't see what god is doing they stumble all over themselves but when they attend to what he reveals they are the most blessed isn't that beautiful when we can't see people without vision we can't see what god is doing in our lives it's very easy to get distracted matter of fact matthew henry says this he says it like this in his commentary he says without vision the people are idle or they play as a student would play when his teacher is absent we can all relate to that idleness what have you heard about idleness it's the devil's workshop idle mind frustrations and distractions and discouragement happens for the lack of vision and many times in proverbs 28 or 29 18 a lot of times we'll say well if the pastor doesn't cast vision for his church the people are going to die we've heard that thank god for a pastor's vision because we have life but i want you to know that this verse was not written to pastors because pastors are not the only ones that are supposed to have vision or to be visionaries pastors like you and i have got to see what's going on in our generation i want to i want to disprove this mindset here uh joel 2 and 28 one of our one of our favorite key verses in the old testament says and it shall come to pass afterward that i will pour out my spirit upon all flesh and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy that's that's preach or share the gospel that's what prophesy means your old men shall dream dreams and your young men shall see visions we quote that all the time uh the prophet joel said in the last days that i believe we're living in those last days matter of fact we understand when the holy ghost was poured out that began the beginning of the last days and and then the role of the younger generation he made it very clear our sons and daughters they're gonna they're gonna preach they're gonna share the gospel and the role of the older generation is going to be different from that of the younger and and i want you to see this because peter is going to quote prophet joel in in acts 2 and 16 but i want you to notice something different and how peter quotes this prophet he says in verse 16 but this is that which is spoken by the prophet joel verse 17 it shall come to pass in the last days saith god i will pour out my spirit upon all flesh that's the same and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy but watch this and your young men shall see visions and your old men shall dream dreams he took the very same quote of the prophet joel but he he reversed the prophecy because he wants to see it that is fulfilled through the vision of the young people the older generation's dreams have been fulfilled and i want you to see this because this word dream from the from the hebrew root shalom it means to be strong or be healthy when the word dream is used by the prophet it's simply saying that our message must remain strong and it's going to take our elders to keep the message strong to keep us from changing listen whatever we do methods are going to change but the message has got to remain the same i realize that everything you see up on this platform doesn't look like it looked when i was in my 20s when i was in my teens the methods might change a little bit the sound changes the video changes the lighting changes things change as far as methods go oh but there's one thing that cannot change and that is the word of god so when it talks about the old it's not saying uh the elderly it's saying the mature saints have got to keep that dream alive have got to keep the vision have got to keep the message strong and healthy so then we look at the word vision well the word vision in hebrew the root is chazah which means to perceive with intelligence to see by experience so our vision which is our method is correctly perceived through a generation that is alive in a generation that understands the culture of the day so what siblings being said here is this we've got to have the mature to hold strong and to keep the message fresh but we have to have the younger generation who understands the methods to preach that message does that make sense got to have both we got to have dreamers we got to have visionaries can't have one without the other because if you lose the dreamers you lose a message if you lose the visionaries i'll tell you what you have you have a church who dies out because they don't understand how to teach or preach the message in methods that the culture can understand vision i want to talk about vision because if we lack vision we perish if we lack the correct methods and purpose we perish so in order to understand our personal purpose i want to kind of move into our personal purpose now because we got to first understand what god's purpose is for us for the church right romans 8 28 was our text and we know that all things work together for the good to them that love god to them who are the called according to his purpose we we we also read in our text what we call the great commission go ye therefore and teach all nations did you see as jesus is giving his last words his last testament if you will before he ascends up into heaven he's telling them i need you to go that was number one i need you to teach i need you to baptize and to make sure that people are obedient to what i've given you that's that that that is what our commission as the church truly is god help us because if we lack any one of these things if if we fail to go we end up in a building right here i heard it said just the other day i i heard this said and i thought i wish i would have thought about that but uh they said you know in in the time of paul they put him in prison so he couldn't go and preach the gospel but in our day they put preachers inside church buildings so they can't go and preach the gospel if we're not careful we as a church we get comfortable in a building which is not the church we are the church this is not a church until we show up and it becomes a church right but if we're not careful we lose the word go which is the very first word the very first command the very first commission we have is don't stay where you are get out of where you are go and teach this doctrine go baptize them will to baptize them you've got to preach repentance we talked about this last week there's no use to baptize without repentance you got to go repent baptize them and then teach them teach them to obey his commandments well we understand with his commandments be born of the water be born of the spirit go and teach what i've told you to teach march 16 15. i want you to kind of see this right here mark gives his account of the same great commission he says and and he said to them speaking of jesus go ye into all the world and preach the gospel to every creature and that might seem odd but let's keep continue to read in acts chapter 1 verse 8 but you shall receive power after that the holy ghost has come upon you and you shall be witnesses i'm going to slow down here unto me both in jerusalem to all judea samaria into the uttermost part of the earth and we love to preach about the power don't we don't we love that power to walk right we sing songs about power to talk right power to live right and then the songwriter slipped in power to give right right great choir song but i i hate i hate and we're gonna keep on seeing it because obviously god does give power we understand the holy ghost gives us power however this was about being power or empowered to teach the gospel to share the gospel to go and reach the world to become disciple makers it's the power to overcome prejudicing do we see that now listen we are living in the day now uh in the last couple years we're kind of coming around that bend again but you've got to realize that in this day the jews were so prejudiced against anybody that was not jewish gentiles definitely the samaritans which were a half breed it was it was a jew that left his people and went and married in with a gentile and they had an offspring called a samaritan right and jesus was simply saying listen guys we can't be prejudiced when it comes to sharing the gospel of jesus christ you all can't get used to hanging out in jerusalem and think that my kingdom is just going to be in this one city my kingdom is going to be in all nations to all people matter of fact i want you to go and preach this to all creatures and we would use the word barbarians because you had those you had those that they considered jews gentiles samaritans those of judea jerusalem samaria but you also had these tribal communities and you have these countries that will tribal nations that that we would consider and they would consider barbarians and jesus was saying i need you to go into all lands all nations all peoples all tongues you can't be prejudiced when it comes to sharing the gospel matter of fact you can't even be prejudiced and be christian  they were called to make disciples of all people we are called to make disciples of all people people we agree with and people we don't agree with listen get on get on fox news and man we got trials going on we got people that are upset and we got other people that are upset with those people and listen i'm not taking sides i'm just planning to take over honestly there's no reason to take sides we're in a place right now where you have one against another one race against another race and if we're not careful come on i know we live in the bible belt i know around here we can't imagine anything happening around here that is happening up north but let me tell you something we're coming to a day when it could happen around here and we've got to be careful that our prejudicium doesn't spark up and people that never realized they had a prejudice bone in their body all of a sudden now have a prejudice bone in their body hey we better fight against that with everything inside of us because that is a trick of the devil it's deception to make us think that somehow our opinion ought to separate oh my god i didn't plan to even get on this but i pray that the church of the living god will look beyond racial tension will look beyond political tension well look beyond all these things i don't care what cnn says fox news says i don't care what nbc is saying i don't care i love all people and i can't allow opinions color of skin nationality language to get in the way of preaching this gospel and loving all people come on somebody the bible talks about loving your neighbor as yourself that wasn't talking about your next door neighbor although you ought to love them too they always talk about people that live outside of where you live have different ways of thinking in different paradigms and different worldviews god help us to love and to share the gospel listen i'm teaching about what god's purpose is for the church because if we're not careful we lose the purpose of the church we we create this really cool apostolic society and we get to start enjoying preaching to one another because why because we know how to talk back and preach back to each other and we enjoy singing to one another because why because we know how to respond and boy we sing that one choir song and oh that brother runs the aisle every time boy people come out of the choir loft and everything feels so good and if we're not careful we lose what the purpose is of the church if we truly believe the gospel of jesus christ how can we keep it to ourselves john 15 16 jesus said you have not chosen me but i have chosen you watch this and ordained you some of y'all didn't even know you've already been ordained some of y'all think you've got to have a a a credential in your pocket from an organization a license and to be ordained but jesus said i am ordaining you that you should go and bring forth fruit that your fruit should remain do you know what that is that's not just inviting someone to church that's not just teaching a bible study for the fruit to remain you got to disciple people you gotta you gotta bring people in when it's not comfortable you gotta go to lunch with people you gotta go to dinner with people you gotta get your house clean and invite people over over to to fellowship just because you understand the fact even though i don't have time i've got ball games i got to go to for my kids i we've got school functions and church functions i got i got to go to small group i got to go here there but but something inside of us we realize that in order to have fruit that we retain there's got to be time put in to people i like i like how jesus said that because it kind of it kind of messes up the christianese that we hear he said you have not chosen me i've chosen you i i get tired of hearing the terminology i accepted the lord i listen now i've grown up apostolic some of y'all came in from from the nominal churches i get it and that's all you ever knew but as an apostolic kid that has always blown my mind how the god of glory creator of all things the sacrificial lamb on the cross that we're going to accept him as if he needs some kind of vote of confidence he said i have chosen you i've accepted you we didn't adopt him he adopted us he said i i've chosen you and it's not just to sit on a church pew we're talking about purpose and attend a worship service where my favorite songs are being sang by my favorite choir jesus said i have chosen you and ordained you why that you should go forth and bring fruit get some fruit find some fruit bring forth fruit jesus saved us out of a world not to join a religion oh my god not to pay weekly homage to a god on a sunday but jesus saved us to fill us with the holy ghost so he could ordain us to reach the lost so we're talking about our our purpose of the church ephesians 4 and 16 says from whom the whole body philly joined together and compacted by that which every joint supplyeth according to the effectual working in the measure of every part maketh increase of the body unto the edifying of itself in love ah listen i want to preach against third century roman church because not only did the doctrine of the trinity come out of the third century but our perception of what sure what church is came out of the same third century and we've been fighting it we've been fighting it every century since then you say what are you talking about well before the third century before the the rome in church the church in rome there were not rows and steeples and stained glass all the people looked at themselves as disciple makers it wasn't just a preacher in the saints i i got to thinking about this you know the average church in america is somewhere around the the average attendance is somewhere around 70 people the average church whatever baptist methodist pentecostal presbyterian 70 people is the average size church in america and i'll tell you why because that third century ideology got into people's mind that a group of people sit and listen and another one ministers that a group of people are disciples and you just have one disciple maker and it just will happen is if you do some research 70 people is the most it's the largest amount of people one person could ever disciple so what you have is you have churches filled with people who have got the same mentality as a third century roman church which is come sit on a pew i already said it pay homage so i can leave and feel better on monday morning because i did something on sunday go back out in the world and live the same way i've been living while that one person is doing all he can to try to disciple people but that's not that's not how the early church began and that's not how the pentecostal church is gonna end my god we the the purpose of the church is to make disciples i want to i want to kind of move into i want to kind of hurry because i've got i've got some things that i really want to to to to shed uh and make and make no tonight but but i believe this first one it talks about fitly joined together it's giving us permission as the body of christ to do what we have to do to add to the church to draw people to the church it's giving us as the people as disciples we are commissioned to be disciple makers to advance the kingdom of god is a church a building absolutely not it's a people it's the body of christ i begin i begin to read and begin to study about the church and and what is the true purpose of the kingdom here on earth and as i began to study uh there was one occasion where jesus he's about he's with his disciples he's he's nearing jerusalem it's right before his crucifixion and the disciples that you know they thought they thought that jesus was coming he was going to ride into jerusalem he was going to overthrow the roman government i don't know where they thought his army was but but some in their minds they had so much faith in this healer they thought he's coming in here we're gonna overtake the romans uh that they've been uh they've been suppressing us for too long he's gonna take over he's gonna set up his kingdom here in jerusalem uh just like david had his kingdom set up in jerusalem and and we're we're going to reign with him here in jerusalem and and jesus quickly began to read their minds and discover what they were thinking and so he told a parable about the nobleman he tells a story about a nobleman going on a long journey and and before this nobleman left he gave he called 10 servants together and he gave each one of his servants one pound each matter of fact luke 19 13 i'll just read he called his ten servants and delivered them ten pounds one pound each servant and said unto them and this is what i want you to see occupy till i come in other words do business for me while i'm gone because i'm coming back does that make sense occupy it it's very similar to when when an army occupies a nation that they have defeated um uh it happens pretty much in in all times in all centuries we have always occupied nations once you defeat them you what do you do you try to help them you want to stabilize them you want to make them help them to progress you want to help them i know the battle's won i know you've defeated the enemy but now you don't want to just you just want to just let them uh just just suffer because you've blown up their buildings you you've cut off their food supply they have no more farms and crops they have they have no they're even their water supply you've probably uh you've probably even taken that from them and so you stay there and you occupy until they get back up on their feet again but but here what i want to say is even though satan is defeated he still has a lot of fight left inside of him all right he wants to make sure he takes as many people down with him as he can so our task here on earth the church we've got to occupy until he returns but but it's it's very it's very involved you think about uh the reason the united states military or our military pull out from afghanistan the reason why it was so heartbreaking is because we were occupying that country not only to fight against the rise of terror but also to rebuild their economy right we wanted to help rebuild their government we are there to change the way their culture viewed everyday society it wasn't that we intended to americanize them right we didn't it's called colonization we we weren't trying to colonize them and make them think like americans that wasn't the point we just intended to teach them to view their women in a different light to view non-muslim people in a different light we were occupying their trying to help them view democracy and the rights of mankind as being a positive thing is very similar to what we did in iraq after after desert storm and desert shield we we occupied those nations trying to rebuild them back up trying to help them we occupied the nation of afghanistan for 20 years but we did not fulfill our mission when we moved out of the country everything went back to its original state the same people who were ruling before we got there the day we left began to rule again and what a travesty but but here we are and i don't want to get i don't want to get too deep into that but we are commissioned by jesus christ to occupy until he comes back and the question we got to ask ourselves is if we pulled out all right the the original disciples maybe maybe our our teachers and our trainers and our our small group leaders and our pastors and and our our children's church workers and our school teachers if we were to pull out today what would be left would the people remaining be discipled enough to make more disciples because if they couldn't we don't have a leg to stand on we start talking about afghanistan because we're supposed to be here occupying so it comes we're supposed to be here making a difference to where if we did have a poll out and we will have a pull out one day thank the lord when we do them something has to be different we have to have something changed that we have been occupying so i asked myself this question i want you to ask yourself this question are you making disciples who make disciples that's really the question it's as easy as that as a church our purpose collectively is we got to make disciples of all men if we want everything to work out for the good we got to do the purpose of god so once we i want to kind of turn the page a little bit but once we have a good understanding of collective purpose as the body of christ then it's much easier to figure out what our individual purpose is and and i know a lot of you are probably looking at me and going brother erickson i know my purpose and i promise you if we sat down and talked one-on-one you probably wouldn't know as much as you think you know about your purpose and i know this because it happened to me last week my wife and i were invited uh we were invited to texas to a very small it was called the kingdom leader lab is it was a very intimate workshop there were six pastors and their wives and it was uh it was four leaders that were brilliant leaders very accomplished leaders and they were just pouring into our lives and the whole theme of this whole set these sessions is a three-day session the sessions were all about understanding your purpose and i'll be honest with you uh family when we walked in there i thought to myself i thought probably like you're thinking i know my purpose but as they got to talking about it listen it it got amazing i'm just gonna i'm just gonna share a little bit um i don't know uh what all i'm allowed to share and hopefully they won't watch this and and and we'll just kind of move on everything be okay but but too many times listen this is what this is this was what they were teaching about too many times the brush stroke of purpose in our lives is so broad that we can't even paint any real detail on our canvas of life okay you say what are you talking about it's kind of it's kind of similar to to writing a 10-page mission statement any of you that they work in the the workforce and you understand a mission statement a mission statement supposed to be this is really short to the point this is the mission right here but sometimes we have so much cluttering our lives and a lot of it's time management but so much cluttering our lives that when we start talking about what our purpose is we start naming this this that this that this that and you start going through and naming all these things and our mission statement turns into this craz it's kind of like asking a taco bell employee getting to the drive-through window saying hey would you make me a cheeseburger and they're like what but that that's how we do we do so much and we become everything to everyone and we lose our purpose and they began brothers so they began to drive this into our minds and ask us what are you doing does that go along with what you view as your purpose and we're like man oh maybe not what do you do on monday what do you do on tuesday what do you do on wednesday how does that how does that even go into your listen we cannot confuse the command to love with the disease to please because if we're not careful we'll try to please everybody and we we turn into these people and and here god has put a colon upon our life and given us a specific purpose for us to do but here we are we're we're painting with this huge brush and we're trying to paint something on this beautiful canvas and we can't even we can't even successfully do anything because we're trying to do everything let's look at let's look at jesus what was jesus's mission statement i'll tell you what it was it was easy it was quick you know i know it was here it is seeking to save the lost destroy the works of the devil give abundant life that's all he did everything he did was in that mission statement i'm going to say it again just get you to catch it seek and save the lost destroy the works of the devil and give abundant life he understood his purpose how many years did jesus minister three three and a half so so he was on earth almost three decades but he knew his purpose he had one he had one mission statement and he was going to do everything he had to do in those three and a half years that's all he needed was three and a half years in order to fulfill what his mission was his purpose was on earth we start trying to narrow down our our individual purpose in god's kingdom there's there's one mindset that seems to want to seep into our older generations let me let me talk to our trendsetters and dear god in heaven i'm only about four years away from y'all i'm coming i know i know y'all don't believe that but it's true we have somehow allowed the age of social security benefits in the age of career retirement to also define the age when we retire from our purpose acts 13 36 i love this right here acts 13 36 says for david after he had served his own generation by the will of god fell asleep and was laid under his fathers and saw corruption david fell asleep after he had served his own generation he didn't retire he served them until he died he fulfilled the will of god until he died here the problem is we we see position instead of purpose when a position ends some people feel well my purpose has ended my purpose listen my purpose is not to be a pastor pastor is just a vehicle to fulfill god's purpose in my life i i listen this is something i was at ibc indiana bible college earlier this year preaching about calling i said guys you're not called to a pulpit you're not called to a microphone musicians you're not called to a piano or a drum set and and a lot of times we we get these ideas because here's the problem if you're called to a pulpit if you're called to a microphone before you're a disciple maker all you're doing is looking for the next place to preach you're not making disciples you're not winning anybody you're not bringing forth fruit you're not retaining fruit all you're doing is looking you're looking for one of these right here just find me a microphone if you're not careful if you learn to be a piano player before you learn to be a worshiper all you're doing is looking for places to play the piano well if i could just get nyc and national youth convention if i could just get there and and somehow get up on that on that grand stage and get on that the main keys no listen you've missed it but if we learn how to be worshipers how to be disciple makers before any of this comes along oh my goodness then when we lose this we don't lose our purpose when somebody comes along that's more talented than you you don't find a shell to crawl into and say oh but man at my last church i was a song leader and they won't even let me on the praise team on this church and i just have no value and i have no identity well you missed it because if you would have been a worshiper first that would have been a big deal but here if you have something to write on if it if it's a phone an ipad a piece of paper or whatever i want to bring application into this bible study because a lot of the times and i'm guilty of this man a lot of times man you could preach a good message and not give any application you could preach against something or for something yeah the people are dealing one way or the other sometimes i'm guilty i'll preach and i'll get done preaching and go home i'll be like man i told him what not to do i didn't tell him how to get out of it but let me just give you some application because in this in this training lab in this training lab they taught us they said if you're going to discover your individual purpose there's five things that you've got to do five actually there's five questions you got to ask yourself here question number one is this write these down where is my prayer chair write that down where is my prayer chair and it began to go into the importance of having a certain place that you go to prayer it's a sacred place it's a place in your home or in your office it's a place it might be in a prayer but it's a place that every day you go to that same place and you pray because here's what happens if you don't have a prayer chair i've done this i've been guilty of this too you're on your way to work and going oh god i pray for this day today god i pray lord oh god touch the kids today touch the wife today god i just believe lord god do something great amen i'm here right so we got to have a place they said first of all more important than anything else is your morning devotion find a place stick to the place be faithful to that place and i gotta remind you they didn't talk about this but i i was kind of thinking of myself i thought you know even in the old testament when they built an altar it took time it took effort we're talking we're talking big stones that had to be stacked on top of one another a flat surface that had to be made wood that had to be brought to the altar i promise you they went to that same altar over and over and over again because once you go through the work the sweat the toil to create that prayer chair you're just gonna keep on going back you form a habit prayer chair and i like this i like this melanie's shocked she said she said when you go to prayer too many people want to do all the talking and we forget that prayer is communication with god which means have you ever talked to somebody that you really had a good thought that they wouldn't let you talk oh my word this this past weekend i was talking to somebody and i'll be honest with you they had some really good stuff to say they they were stopped they were inspiring me they had some really good stuff to say but there was a few times when brother steph i had some good stuff to say too but dear god in heaven i couldn't get a word in edgewise they would just i mean they ended one subject went to another subject i lost my train of thought and i just kind of wonder sometimes if god in heaven is listening to us pray and it's kind of like uh uh uh okay okay uh imagine with me you imagine with me melanie shock said that she said take a pad of paper with you and just shut up and just listen we gotta learn how to listen she said i she said i get more inspired she said i'll pray but then there comes a time when i'll just take my pen out and i'll just sit there and just wait for that still small voice to start speaking into my mind she said i'll write out some of the most she writes books she said i'll write out some of the most unbelievable things by just just listening that's number one number two what is my natural gifting or talking about discovering our individual purpose what is your gifting because god is not going to create a purpose for you without first giving you a skill set in order to fulfill that purpose if every time you get in front of people you feel like you're going to throw up that might not be in your skill set i'm just saying i'm just saying if every time is like the first time listen there's a whole listen there's a whole lot better things to do than get in front of people i'm just gonna be honest with you there are some amazing ministries that are world-changing ministries that have nothing to do with getting in front of people but god god's not gonna too many people i see they try to force themselves into a purpose that god never meant for their life oh god again uh you see this more with the young people because young people they're always searching they're trying to figure out what who am i what is my ministry what is my calling what what am i supposed to be doing in life what what where does god want to lead me you know what am i going to do i want to be a world changer but but what do i do to get to be a world changer how do i do it where do i do it we got to tell them listen you can't look at other people and compare yourselves among yourselves man listen there are gifted people i went to bible school lord i've preached about them and i'll preach about the rest of my life one of my best friends in the world patrick wilson went on to be at the lord i think it's been 20 years ago now or 20 actually been 22 years ago now drowned in the lake but patrick dear god the god was good looking every girl wanted to date him the guy was like six foot tall and could easily two-hand dunk a basketball he was like the best golfer he was the best softball player he was the best drummer he was the best singer he was the best preacher and he had to be my friend god i'm like okay well you know it's nice to be here it's like so many people look and they see people doing things like well i want to try that i'm going to do that i'm going to be like that i could if he can do it i can do and that's not true stay in your lane god has given every single person in this room a specific purpose we're the body of christ we're all in this thing together but we all can't be the same thing we all got to serve whatever purpose god has given us stick with your natural gifting you got to ask listen you got to ask yourself hard questions here's another number three they said they said ask yourself what is my life verse i thought i've never thought about that i said one verse gives you inspiration every time you read it you read it the morning afternoon evening time every time you read it you're just like whoo fight find that verse number four what brings your soul fulfillment now i didn't say i didn't say what brings your ego fulfillment because there's a lot of those things that can bring fulfillment but what what is it that your soul desires that when you do oh listen i i remember one something that i had to learn to love was hospital visitation i'm just gonna be honest i've loved it for years so don't get offended if i've come pray for you because i've loved it for for decades now but y'all now i'm not talking about any y'all but i've been to some people's rooms when you walk in and you're like oh i mean this was before wearing masks was cool you know what i'm saying and you walk in and you're like oh my goodness people listen i don't know how many times i've walked into rooms pastor carpenter text me say um say chad go uh blount moore hospital room 241 go up and see so and so they're the cousins uh nephew of the of the second removed friend of so-and-so yes sir i walk into 241 call him by name they just look back at me like what aren't you so-and-so no who are you i mean i listen but let me tell you something listen i've been i've been in some weird situations i've prayed for people that let me pray for them before they told me that they weren't them like let me start over what is your name we'll start back over again because somebody just got a blessing and it wasn't you but what but i digress but i started there because now that is like my favorite thing to do nothing there is no better feeling than to be able to to minister people to walk out and know that you've made a difference in their life that that they hadn't had a visitor their own family hadn't come and seen them yet and you're there you're spending time with them you're trying to get to know them better and you want to pray for them you care about their need that's soul fulfillment you you got to find those things because why that is gonna be that you're defining your calling man listen you want the most one of the most unbelievable feelings teach a bible study perdue listen i'm the type of person that like i overthink things and so in my mind i'm thinking i got a bible study 10 o'clock i got a bible study 10 o'clock god bless oh i got a bible study 10 o'clock i got a boss i got to get this done for 10 o'clock 10 o'clock 10 o'clock man when i get out of that bible study i'm like whoa that was the most fun thing i've ever done in my life it's so rewarding it's so big find that thing that when you do it you get soul fulfillment and then number five i love this one what do i hope will outlive me what what do i hope have you ever thought about that and listen i i guess i'm just now i'm getting i'm getting close to that half century mark and so i guess i'm thinking a little bit more a little bit more over the hill but i started thinking these thoughts you know what kind of legacy am i leaving my family and my grandchildren i i've spoken at so many funerals and been to so many funerals heard what they say about people i'm thinking myself man i hope they can come up with something good to say about me you know seriously because i if you're like me i it's like i don't have any great opinion of myself i'm just here i'm just doing what i do but i think to myself what am i going to leave behind what kind of footsteps will my grandchildren walk in that they can say my grandfather erickson we're here because of what he did we're here because of what he taught we're here because of what he stood for what he's held strong to what he kept fresh in our lives there's what's called a kairos moment i'm almost done a kairos moment the jewish rabbi they refer to these these kairos moments as when our will and god's will intersect a kairos moment when i finally understand the purpose of my life and get on trajectory to where somehow the purpose that god has for the church and the purpose that he has for my life come together let me tell you something it's scary to try to live out a purpose that god never intended us to live out i began by saying that that's when a person faces frustration right dissatisfaction discouragement but i want to end a little bit differently because the whole kingdom leader lab was themed around a diagram of a tree we come into this uh they had this beautiful conference room it was it was it was at a farm and and and don't misjudge this it was unbelievable uh they had built a conference center in in it it was immaculate everything was was unbelievable they had a conference room and in the conference room all the way up the wall was this diagram of this tree and of course it of course started with the roots and they talked about what the roots mean in our ministry and they went up to the trunk with the trunk means and the branches with the branches mean but what really stuck out to me the most was the leaves because this i believe and i'm kind of coming back to a subject i kind of touched on earlier but i believe good saints of god miss out on the fulfillment of purpose when their identity becomes their position okay follow me i'm almost done i'll be done and when that position is taken away or maybe somebody ages out of the position or or maybe you can no longer fulfill the role of the position and the person loses their identity and in turn they lose their purpose what's to think about this because all positions all leadership titles are just leaves on the tree at the end of the season they're all going to fall they're beautiful in the season they're beautiful in their time but every single one of the leaves are going to drop to the ground and they're going to rot and they're one day just going to become earth once again but the worth of the tree does not depend on the condition of the leaf and they begin to teach this to us and i begin to think about this because listen it's very easy to look at a position or to look at a title as your identity i've seen it happen i listen in our organization i've seen i've seen mighty men who have fallen because somebody came and ran against them in an election and defeated them and where once they were mighty and they were over all this uh a department or the organization or whatever position they held now the sudden they're no longer that position and they've lost all identity and it's like a great giant has fallen because they put their faith in the leaves of the tree when all along it was only gonna be for a season when all along they were beautiful my god and even in the fall and and what a great place to live in east tennessee when our fall colors when when we can drive not even 20 minutes from here get up on the parkway and we can overlook it we can look over the beautiful mountains the smoky mountains and see the beautiful leaves and the foliage and it's so beautiful and you know what that's how life really is and that's how ministry really is usually when it's the most beautiful is when it drops out but you know what the season's gonna come around again and although whatever you were the last season you might have to reposition or you you will if you're gonna remain with your purpose you're gonna have to reposition it's not an option because otherwise we just become a bunch of leaves that have fallen on the ground and we have a bunch of has-beens and we've lost all of our purposes but if we can see oh god and i i believe i just want to speak to somebody in this place and i want the holy ghost to minister right now if we could understand that the tree it does not matter what is going on with the leaf system if the tree will remain strong if the the tree will remain healthy oh just give it a little bit of time because there's going to be some buds that are going to shoot out there's going to be some fruit that's going to be oh my god if you'll just give yourself a little bit of time and allow god to do something he's going to make you more beautiful than you've ever been i want you to stand with me romans 8 28 i i'm fish i've gone too long romans 8 28 and we know that all things work together for good to them that love god to them who are the called according to his purpose god spill your heads all over this place come on let's just lift our hands to heaven right now i just want to say a prayer over you today oh my god i just believe there's people in this room who just like me felt they understood the purpose they understood everything in their life but god you're making things clear lord to me you're making things clear to people lord god that are standing before me lord holy ghost-filled saints of god people that have been empowered by your spirit lord you are gonna start to talk to people's minds and just speak with the stillness of your voice and lord god i'm just gonna believe lord that in this place are gonna be great and mighty men and women i believe there's young people who are gonna be raised up to do hard things in life who are who are going to be raised up to do things who have a purpose that they can't even imagine what you're going to have them do in life i i just believe that somewhere in this building there's somebody that's saying right now i'm sick and tired of not understanding who i am i'm sick and tired of not knowing my identity come on somebody you got to start asking yourself hard questions you got to start making up in your mind i'm going to have a prayer life every morning i'm going to get up i'm going to pray i'm going to say god lord whatever it is you want me to do today that's what i'm going to do i need inspiration i need instruction i need you to speak into my mind lord i need your authority to go with me all day today i believe in this church there are people who you've sat on a pew too long god has given you talents god has given you abilities he's saying i need you to be here and occupy till i come and i need you to do something with what i give you i don't want you to hide it in the sand i don't want you to get out oh somebody help me the lord is coming back soon and very soon and it's going to be for a church this busy occupying and making sure that everybody that we come in contact with knows and has heard the name of jesus in the gospel of jesus christ i just believe in this place tonight father i don't know who they are but i believe they're going to go home and they're going to start thinking about god what is my verse what god what is what inspires me what well what is it that my soul yearns for they're gonna start asking themselves god what kind of talents have you given me that i'm not even using right now god what am i trying to be that i'm not and what do i need to be that i'm not trying to be and i just believe right here and right now that god is going to raise up people that have visions he's going to raise up people they get a vision for not only who he is but who for they who they are god i pray in jesus name that you make a way for somebody oh god who's here tonight that has questions in their mind in jesus name come on somebody if you'll receive this word tonight just lift up your hands to heaven come on we just praise god in this place tonight father oh we love you father i just believe lord god blunt county blount county is gonna be one for you not because of a pastoral staff but because of a church that's filled with disciple makers lord i believe lord god that our world lord our world is going to be turned upside down not because of a beautiful church building that sits at 1331 william drive but because people are willing to leave this place like brian and die in a triplet and are going to go over to africa and are going to go teach bible studies and are going to go preach this gospel and are going to go make a difference in the lives of people who have never heard the oneness of jesus god i just believe the philippines are going to have revival like they've never had revolved before because of the disciples that the names have already made have already sent out lord i've been to the churches in hong kong but i just believe lord revival i don't care if it's covent season or not i don't care what varian i i don't care there's a delta i don't care i believe we're going to have revival greater than we've ever had it because disciples are going to make disciples and the church is going to go forward and god people are gonna come to you because the purpose is revealed  if you believe that say in jesus name amen and amen type your hands on the lord one more time god bless you tonight love you god bless you see you on sunday morning