 Well, how do you radiate? You guys doing all right? It's May, it's warm, it's sunny outside. It's a beautiful Mother's Day weekend. And again, we just wanna thank all of you moms for literally bringing us into the world and we're grateful for you. And we pray that this weekend that if you are a mom, you feel celebrated. If you have a mom, they feel celebrated. And the one holiday of the year you don't wanna mess up on is Mother's Day. How many know that's the truth? Cause you will hear about it the rest of the year. Father's Day, you can skimp a little bit on, you know? You can just kinda, oh, dad, hey, thought you were gonna grill out. And it's all like, oh yeah, for sure. But Mom's Day, you do not wanna mess that up. And so hopefully all of you moms feel celebrated and we love you here at Radiant. And it's our privilege to have you here with us this weekend, whether it's online or in person or at Portage as well. I wanna invite you to turn with me in your Bibles to Colossians chapter one. This is part three of our series entitled Preeminent. The whole book of Colossians and the whole story of this letter that Paul wrote from a Roman prison to the Christians at Colisei is about the supremacy or the preeminence of Jesus Christ. Above all things, that Jesus is higher than and you feel on the blank. Anything that you can come up with, Jesus is higher, greater, wiser, stronger, more significant and more important. How many are grateful that in the world that we live in that oftentimes feels like things are out of control? There is one at the center of it all who is in control of it all. Who created it all will one day come back and reclaim it all, but in the middle is redeeming it all. He is greater and he's doing that in our lives and he's also doing it in the world that we live in. And so I wanna draw your attention today to verse number nine through 14 of chapter one. And I've entitled this message from darkness to light, from darkness to light. Paul writes these particular words beginning in verse number nine and it says, and so from the day we heard, we have not ceased to pray for you asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will and all spiritual wisdom and understanding. So as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God, may you be strengthened with all power according to his glorious might for all endurance and patience with joy, giving thanks to the Father who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light. For he has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved son in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. So what we just read is Paul's prayer wish for this church. That remember, Paul has never been to this church. Paul did not start this church. It's actually the overflow of his ministry. When he was at Ephesus and he planted the church at Ephesus, one of the disciples from Ephesus went and planted another church in Colise. So now Paul is writing these letters. He's in a Roman prison. He's soon probably to be martyred for his faith and he's writing this letter. And as with all of his letters, he introduces himself. He gives kind of an initial snapshot of what his point is in the letter. And then he oftentimes will include a prayer. And this is Paul's prayer. We just read it. It was Paul's prayer for these believers. What in his heart as an apostle, as a spiritual parent, his desire is for these particular Christians, these disciples who are just starting out and following Jesus. And it's interesting that Paul uses this parental language and this prayer language throughout a lot of his epistles in Galatians chapter four, verse 19. He says, my little children, this is what he calls the Galatians. My little children for whom I am again in anguish of childbirth until Christ is formed in you. So Paul views himself as a parent who is praying and crying out to God that you and I and those believers that he's writing to would actually grow up into maturity so that Christ would be fully formed in us. I think it's appropriate on this weekend when we're talking about Colossians and we're celebrating Mother's Day that we acknowledge that behind a lot of our stories are praying parents or praying mothers. The prayers of a righteous mother avails much. And you know, every mother and every father for that matter, every parent, understands what Paul's saying when he's like, look, I'm praying earnestly for you that you would actually go on to maturity, that you would actually grow up into, as he says, be able to apprehend and claim the inheritance that is yours. Because what Paul understands and what he's focusing on in this prayer is he knows and he recognizes there's a difference between salvation as a experience or salvation that takes place in a moment and actually salvation or maturity that is a process. See, salvation or us being born again coming into a right relationship with God takes a moment. Think about these scriptures. Romans 10 verse 13 says, whoever calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved. How long does it take you to call on the Lord? How many remember your prayer of salvation in the moment when Jesus saved you? It was like, help, I'm convicted of my sin. I know that I need to save your God, save me. And this is reiterated in Ephesians 2-8 when it says that we're saved by grace through faith that it's not of worksless any mentioned both. So we're saved by God's grace. And it's the gift of God. In other words, how long does it take to give a gift? Doesn't take real long unless it's my family at Christmas time. Now I grew up and it was like, you had to wait. They took a gift and you had to like rattle it around. How many have somebody in your family that takes forever to unwrap a present? And it just drives you crazy. It's like, they've got to, oh, this is really nice paper. Let's save the paper and they're like steaming the tape off of it and like unwrapping it and folding the paper. And in our family, the whole family had to watch each individual unwrap the gift, assemble the gift, play with the gift, donate the gift to the goodwill some years later before you could open your gift. Most humans though, gifts are given very quickly. It's like, I want to give this to you and you receive it. That's how salvation is. We're born again in a moment. Think about Jesus on the cross. He has the two criminals on either side of him and one of them cries out to him and he says, Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom. What did Jesus say to him? He says, oh, in about a decade you'll be ready to join me in paradise. No, this guy didn't have time. Jesus said today, today you will be with me in paradise. He went from criminal to crowned part of the royal family of heaven in a moment. That's what happens at salvation. We're saved. The spirit of the living God comes in and saves us. This is what Paul's making reference to down at the bottom in verse number 13 when he says he, Jesus, has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved son in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. This is what Paul's talking about. This is what happens when we're saved. We're taken out from under the domain of darkness and we're transferred spiritually into the kingdom of God. This happens in a moment. It's Egyptian deliverance language, by the way. If you recognize that he's making all of these allusions to language that they would have understood. God went into Egypt through Moses and in one day he delivered them out of Egyptian bondage out from under the domain of darkness. It took one day, think about that, 430 years of slavery. And in one night, God delivered them way down with the gold, the silver and the wealth of Egypt on their back delivered them out from the domain of darkness, one moment. That's what salvation does. But salvation happens in a moment but maturity is a process. You see, God took Egypt or he took Israel out of Egypt in one day but it took them 40 years in the wilderness to prepare them to go in and possess their inheritance. Why did it take 40 years? Was God not good at what he does? No, it was 40 years of them walking in a circle. If you were to look on a map of where God led them for an entire generation He just led them in circles, walking around the same set of mountains over and over and over again. There are a lot of Christians that get saved in a moment but then they never seem to grow up and mature. And you can look at it and you can say, well, they've been serving Jesus for 40 years. They should be a lot further along than they are right now. They've got 40 years of experience. No, they have one year of experience that they've repeated 40 times because they live their life going around the same mountains, around the same issues, experiencing the same temptations, refusing to yield to the same things and they're not maturing. Now, this is what Paul is praying. Paul is praying. Everything that we just read is this prayer of Paul that one aspect of it builds upon another and what he's talking about is maturity and that is the prayer for every parent is that our kids will come into maturity. That's what Paul's praying. Now listen, I remember 27 years ago when Jane and I knew we were about to become parents. We were very young, we were in our early 20s and we were married and we loved each other and wanted to build a family but when it came to how to have kids we had that part figured out but the part we didn't have figured out was how to be parents. We didn't know how to raise your kids to be fully functioning mature individuals. I'm a how guy. It's like, okay, I get the big picture but show me the how. It's like somebody the other day was trying to explain Bitcoin to me and I'm like, okay, so I get it. I know what paper money is, currency checks, credit cards, I get all that. Pastor Caleb was trying to explain Bitcoin to me. It's like, oh, it's cryptocurrency. It's all secured by blockchain and this happens and I'm just like, no, but where's the collateral? And they're just like, no, you're not getting it. I'm like, yeah, I'm not. I need the how behind it because behind every big what, there needs to be a how but just like Bitcoin is a mystery, raising kids can be a mystery. Now, next week, Jane and I are gonna celebrate the marriage of our youngest child, the last one to leave the house and we will officially be empty nesters and to my recollection, I think so far we've been pretty good parents. We haven't wrecked anybody. We haven't lost anybody and they're moving forward in life. Now, as I look back on raising kids, I recognize that there are certain processes that you go through in developing maturity in your kids. Now, you don't get them when they're six months old and sit them down on the couch and go, okay, here's the process. For the next six months and two weeks, we're gonna do this but then we're gonna shift gears to this and then we're gonna shift gears to this and then you've got a whole schedule, a whole blueprint laid out for them and then you're gonna arrive safely here, graduate high school, leave our house and that's gonna be awesome. It doesn't work that way but you do recognize that there are certain organic things, metrics, milestones, markers that are part of the process of seeing your children grow up. You know, you have a lot of grace for your kids when they're little, that you don't have for them when they're 30 living in your basement. You have a lot of grace when your eight year old comes to you and says, dad, there's a book fair. Can I have some money to go buy a book? But when they're 30 years old or 40 years old or they come to you and it's like, dad, can I have some lunch money? No, it's time for you to go get a job, it's time for you to grow up. Why? It's because there's an expectation of maturity. God has an expectation of maturity for us because salvation is different than maturity. Salvation is a moment, maturity is a process. Philippians chapter two is describing this process. It says, therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed so now, not as only in my presence, but much more in my absence, listen to this, work out your salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God who works in you both to will and to work for his good pleasure. So Paul is saying, look, it's time for you now. Salvation happens in a moment, but now you've got to work it out just like a parent saying, you've got to grow up and I'm gonna be here to help steer you. Here is my prayer for you. My prayer is that someday, the prayer of every parent is that someday your kids are gonna grow up, have a job, have a house, they're gonna be married, they're gonna have kids because grandkids are the payoff for all that your kids put you through through their teen years and you want your great grandkids, you want them to have their own jobs and their own dreams and then you can step back and say, my children are mature. But it takes working out. They have to work it out in the same way that God calls us to work out our maturity. This is what Paul wants for us. And I think this is important for us to understand because we have a subconscious mindset, oftentimes in Western Christianity, that all that matters is that we get saved so that someday we can go to heaven when we die and now we've got however many years on this planet to kind of do whatever we want to. It's kind of like the person that shows up at the airport four hours before their flight. It's like, you know, your flight's gonna take off, now you can do whatever you want. You can go to the food cart and you can go shop at the Best Buy vending machine, you can scroll through your phone but you've got all this window of time. And that sometimes is how we view our life. It's like, I prayed the prayer when I was a kid, I'm saved and someday I'm gonna go to heaven but now it doesn't really matter what I do in the time being. No, that is a misnomer. That's a misconception of what God wants for us because salvation is important but it's what comes out. How we work out that, God wants all of us to come into a place of maturity because here's what I want you to realize. Every single one of us are in a maturing process and I'm not talking physical maturing process. Every single one of us are in a maturing process. The question is, whose path are we maturing on? Are we maturing in our understanding of the way of the world or are we maturing in our understanding of following Jesus? It's one or the two. Nobody stays stagnant, nobody stays the same. There is no flat, there is no pause, you're moving in one of two different directions. So I wanna show you tonight out of this prayer that Paul prays that he's not just stringing along this run-on sentence of spiritual rhetoric and ideas there, there's actually a chain block or a process that is found in this prayer that Paul understands is actually what I call the process of maturity that we need to recognize in us. Paul is praying like a parent and here's what he's praying. I'm praying that you're gonna learn how to walk and then you're gonna learn how to speak and then you're gonna learn how to read and you're gonna learn how to write because that opens up a whole world of education for you to grow into your dream, become a fully functioning city. It's that kind of prayer except it's spiritual and it's implications and I call it the process of maturity. So I wanna show you how this works here. The process of maturity, it starts in verse number nine where it says, Paul, I'm asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will and all spiritual wisdom and understanding. What's the first step in the process of maturity? Here it is. It's the pursuit of God. It's the pursuit of God. This is where Paul starts in his prayer. This is where our maturing process begins as followers of Jesus. It's the pursuit of God. What do I mean by that? Well, Jesus said in Matthew five or six, blessed are those who hunger and thirst after righteousness for they will be filled. So the question is, after we get saved, what is our appetite? Are we hungry for God or are we hungry for other things, competing things? Really, if there's genuine salvation, if there's a genuine encounter with God where we've recognized our sin as John preached so well last weekend, if the gospel has really brought transformation, faith, hope, and love into our hearts, then we will know the genuineness of that salvation experience because our heart is immediately hungry for God. It's like, I wanna go after God. I wanna know more about him. I wanna close a relationship with him. We should be so fearful if our attitude towards God is so really kind of lazy and indifferent where it's like, yeah, I'm saved, but that should never come out of us. That should scare us, actually. It's like, yeah, I love Jesus, but, or yeah, I love God, but, or what. When there's indifference or apathy in our heart, that's a moment for us to go back in what Paul says, examine yourself of whether you're really in the faith. I'm afraid that there are people who are right now in the church of Jesus Christ in America and around the world who actually think they're saved, but they're really not. They think they're saved because they pray to prayer, but their heart, there's absolutely no pursuit of God. You see, when you're born of a woman and you come into the world, your immediate desire is for your mother. That's natural. When you're born into the kingdom of God, your natural desire should be for God. It says in Philippians 2, it is God who works in you both to desire and to work out his will, his good pleasure. And Paul's way of praying this is I'm praying that you would be filled with the knowledge of his will and all spiritual wisdom and understanding and what he's saying is, I want you to develop a hunger for God. Because if you develop a hunger for God, you're gonna go after it and he promises if you pursue God, if you hunger, if you thirst after righteousness, you're going to be filled. And the filling is what he's talking about, knowledge of God, spiritual understanding and wisdom. We gain knowledge and wisdom and understanding about things we are interested in, things that we are pursuing. If I bring up the profile on Facebook of somebody that you know or don't know or don't like and I begin to ask you questions about them, you're gonna be like, I don't know and I don't care. I don't know, I don't care. It's like, oh, what's their favorite color? I don't know. Why would I know that? It's like, oh, where did they go to school? I don't know. But if I pull up the picture of somebody that you are attracted to and you're pursuing in a relationship, you're gonna know all the details. Oh, I know, I know every detail. I know where they go to school. I know where they eat lunch. I know who their friends are. I know what kind of car they drive because I'm constantly looking for the car and no, you're not a stalker. You just happen to know a little bit of additional information because you're paying attention and you're pursuing knowledge. Jane and I will go to restaurants. Sometimes this year we'll be married 29 years. So when you've been married for 29 years, you kind of finish each other's sentences and you kind of know what the other person is thinking a lot of times. Jane and I will be in a restaurant and we'll look over at a couple and we'll look at each other and simultaneously go first date. You wanna know what we can tell? Cause their phones are down. You know when somebody's been dating for a while cause they're just at the same table but they're scrolling. Cause there's more interesting thing going on in the world than the person across. But first date, you're leaned in and it's like, huh, tell me, oh yeah, oh really? Fifth grade? Whoa, are you kidding me? I went to the same school. We did the same work book in fifth grade. Are you kidding me? What, do you want something? Do you need something? Can I get something for you? First date. Cause you're pursuing and so you become an expert on the details. You step into knowledge, wisdom and understanding of that individual. When there's an appetite in your heart you will pursue God. And you know the beautiful thing about God is God according to Philippians chapter two is actually the one who puts that desire in us to pursue him. And if we don't have that desire or pursuit we need to go back to God and say, give me that. Cause this is where it leads to. So in the process of maturity God gives us this appetite, this desire for him for his word. We go to the Bible and we immerse ourselves in the word of God. Not in order to collect data and information in order to leverage against other people or to create an understanding or a profile that somehow we are more spiritual and more intelligent on other people. That's Phariseeism. But we actually go the word of God because this has given us all the details about the one that we love most. Paul's like, I wanna see on the inside of you the pursuit of God that leads to number two which is the transformation of our hearts. The transformation of our hearts verse 10. I want you to have this spirit or be filled with the knowledge of his will and spiritual wisdom and understanding so that you might walk in a manner worthy of the Lord. In other words, the way that you walk begins to change because of the one that you're pursuing. It begins to affect the way that you live begins to affect the things that you think about. You begin to meditate on who God is and it begins to transform you. This is what the word of God does in our lives. It transforms us. See, the Bible is unlike any other book because it's the only book that when you're reading it, it's reading you. It's spirit. Jesus said the words, I speak to you, they are spirit and they are life. They're not just history. These are living words and as you begin to deposit them into your heart, they begin to change you. They begin to transform you. Romans 12 verse two says, do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind so that you might prove what is the good, the acceptable and the perfect will of God for your life. What happens when we get the word of God on the inside of us, it begins to transform us instead of being conformed to what everybody else wants. And listen, when we live on a steady diet of social media and live on a steady diet of the philosophy and the thinking of this world, when we are ruled by the opinion of the mob and the masses, that will transform you as well. That will change you because to whomever you are pursuing, you will allow their words to transform you. We've all seen it, right? Somebody's dating somebody and they begin to change. Why? It's because I want to be pleasing to them. Whoever you want to please, this is what James meant when he said this. He said to be friends with the world is to be enemies with God. Why? It's because you can't please both. But when we receive the word of God, when we put the word of God in our life in a steady diet, again, not out of religious observation, but out of passion, here's what begins to happen. It changes us. James chapter one verse 21 says this, therefore receive with meekness the implanted word of God, which is able to save your soul. Now, you're saved in your spirit at the moment you're born again, but your soul, which is your mind, your heart, your inward being, it needs, it's a process of transformation. And the more we take God's word in this, it changes us. If you don't see change, listen, there is a direct correlation between those who consistently live and prioritize the word of God and prayer and intimacy with God and those whose lives begin to mature and transform. You can't, I wish, listen, I wish maturity was by osmosis. I wish we could just take the Bible and go, man, I really want that and just like this and download it. I wish there was a USB port in our forehead. You could just go, woop, like the matrix, you know? It's like, oh, now I know kung fu. I wish it worked like that, but it doesn't. We have to receive it with meekness, which means we humble ourselves. It's hard to humble ourselves to the word of God when we continually come back to the word of God and say God's word says this, culture says this, God's probably wrong because culture has figured it out. As if all of a sudden it's like, well, Jesus said those things, but he didn't have an accredited education and wasn't living in the 21st century. If Jesus was here, what do we think Jesus, who's the son of God, who is all knowing, all wise, do we think he's in the first century going, well, I'm telling you guys this now, but you'll see what I really believe in about 2,000 years when a woke world comes on the scene. No, to the degree that we receive his word in humility and say, God, I'm hungry for you, I'm pursuing you, it begins to transform our hearts and our minds which leads to number three in the process of maturity, which is a desire to please God. We end up wanting to please God. Verse number 10, the second part of it, it says it's a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing him. Listen, do we wanna please God? Paul says in Galatians chapter one, verse 10, he says, am I now seeking the approval of man? If I were still seeking the approval of man, I could not be a servant of Christ. Am I seeking the approval of God or am I seeking the approval of man? Who's will are we trying to live out? Who are we trying to please? Cause you can't please everybody. Psychologists say that one of the most dangerous personality types is, there's lots of different categories for it, but basically it's a people pleaser. A person who lives their life needing other people to be happy with them is the most fragile type or personality type because it is fluid. It's never living in a place of stability. And so when we live our lives trying to please the world, you're only as good as your last thing that you did. But when you live your life to please God, fully pleasing him, you can have stability because God never changes. God never shifts. You see, our walk needs to be changed. Our walk needs to be altered because we're serving God. Think about it when a child begins to take their first steps. How pleased are you mom when your little boy leaning on the coffee table and you're like, okay, come on, come on. And they just like, take that first step and then they fall. What do parents do? Go, you loser. No, it's like, that's awesome. You took your first step and it pleases you. Do you know what your kids see? They see that it pleases you. And when they see that it pleases you, they want to do it again. And they want to do it over again because they want to see the smile on your face. See, when we've lived, I'm not talking, the danger in this stuff is we can begin to turn them into tasks. Okay, now I got to check my box because I want to please God. I don't want him to be angry instead of when it's face to face, when Jesus has become real to us and we see the smile on his face, we begin to see who he is and what makes him happy. And we take that step and it pleases him. Now what happens is on the inside of us, there grows a desire to please God even more. Ephesians five, Paul writes, verse number eight through 10, for at one time you were darkness, but now you are the light and the Lord walk his children to the light for the fruit of light is found in all that is good and right and true. And try here, I love this. This is Paul under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit. He says, and try to discern what the will of the Lord is. You would almost have thought that Paul says, and do what the will of God is, but he actually writes and try to discern what the will of the Lord is. That's different because it means it's exploration. It's like, I'm focused, God, what pleases you? I wanna know your heartbeat. I wanna know what pleases you, how I do it. It's not just the external going through the motions. It's a heart connection. It's God, I'm really trying to figure out what pleases you. Our dog, Boaz, who's a golden retriever. He knows three English words. He knows eat, because we all know that one. And one of the other words that he knows is walk. So Jane will say like, do you wanna go for a W-A-L-K? She does that for me, because if I don't wanna go for a walk and you say walk, it's over. Because as soon as he hears walk, his ears pop up and he's like, oh, we're going for a walk. He'll run for his leash. He knows, waiting at the front door, it's like, would you just give me a minute? It's incredible how intuitive dogs are. The other thing that he does is he knows when what he is doing is pleasing to me and when it's not. It's amazing to me how intuitive animals are and sometimes how rigid and unintuitive humans are when it comes to relating to God. I don't wanna relate to God and pleasing God just out of a physical observation. I wanna know his heart. I wanna walk in a manner. I want my behavior. I want the steps that I take and the way that I relate to him to be worthy of who the Lord is in my life. But I want him to be pleased. Not just think that he's pleased, but literally I have a desire in my life that I wanna please God. I wonder, do you have a desire on the inside of you that says, look, the number one thing I wanna do with my life is I wanna please God. Because I'll tell you right now, the world is captivated on pleasing self. I wanna please me. What makes me happy? What feels good? If it doesn't hurt anybody else, this is what I'm living my life for. It's pleasing me. Now, listen, that's so empty because at the end of the day, you're gonna find out how fickle you really are. I pleased the old me, but I'm not pleasing the new me because you don't have the capacity to flourish as a human being the way God created you by living only to please yourself. But the way God has wired us is that we actually experience the fullness of life when we live to please Him in the process of dying to ourselves. Who are we living for? Sometimes we conflate the two and we say, well, I'm living for God but I'm living to please myself. Now, in the process of maturity, we've gotta come to the place where we learn to desire to please God, which leads to number four, which is fruitfulness in our lives. Verse number 10, he says, I want you to bear fruit in every good work, increasing in the knowledge of God. So he wants fruit to begin to come out of our lives. This is what you were created for. You were created to bear fruit. As a Christian, Jesus saved you. God loved you. He went to the cross. He rose from the dead, filled you with His Holy Spirit so that there would come fruit out of your lives, not just so that you would hold it all in and then one day show up to heaven. Listen, you were created for good works. Ephesians two, verse 10 says, you were created for good works. If fruit isn't coming out of our lives, then we're not living in the fullness of our purpose. I love what Jesus said in John 15. He said this to his disciples, no longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing, but I've called you friends. For all that I've heard from my father, I've made known to you, you did not choose me, but I chose you. Why? So that you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should remain. Guys, you didn't choose Jesus. Jesus chose you. He chose to love you. He chose to save you. And behind the what he did, there ought to be a gratefulness, but there also ought to be a, why did you do that, Jesus? I did it so you'd bear fruit. So that your life would multiply. So that other people's lives would be impacted so the kingdom would be extended. Number six, or number five, it leads to courageous endurance and strength. I love what Paul says in verse 11, may you be strengthened with all power according to his glorious might for all endurance and patience with joy. And then number six, verse number 12, he says, giving thanks to the Father who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints of the light. It's a priority and a perspective shift. How many in this room by show of hands or even over at Portage or online by show of hands would say, and this only counts for those who are older, okay? So if you're under 25 and above, how many would say, I'm so glad that I know now that the things that I value and the way that I view the world today is vastly different than when I was 13 years old. But how many people could tell you when you were 13 years, like you're just trying to take all my fun. He never let me do anything. It's like, no, you're gonna thank me for this someday. No, not. He's the greatest boyfriend. So what if he carries hatchets and kills small puppies? I love him. No, I love him. You're not seeing him. And now at 29 years, like, mom, dad, thank you. My frontal lobe is fully developed. And now I understand, I see the world from a different perspective. Can I just tell you in our spiritual immaturity, we're gonna go through this process over and over and over. And there's gonna be moments where it's like, God, I don't understand. God, why aren't you doing what I want you to do? God, this is painful. God, this hurts. And then there's gonna come moments where you actually step in and gratitude and joy and thankfulness rise up out of your heart. You're gonna be like, God, you're so good. I'm so glad that my perspective and my mentality has shifted. Last scripture, Philippians 3.15. Paul writes, let those of us who are mature think this way. And if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that to you also. Only let us hold true to what we have attained. There's a way of thinking that leads to maturity. There's a way of thinking that demonstrates maturity. It's called perspective and priorities. Here's when you know your kids have grown up. When they begin to think about others like a parent, when they begin to build their families and they begin to prioritize other people above themselves and they begin to see from a perspective, a bigger picture. This is what happens in a Christian's life. We begin to prioritize other people. That's a sure sign of maturity. We begin to see from a panoramic, eternal kingdom of God perspective. That's a sure sign of maturity. Paul says, those who are mature think this way. This is Paul's prayer. I'm praying for you that the Holy Spirit who dwells in you is gonna bring you to the place of maturity, strengthening you, bring about fruitfulness, that your walk's gonna change and your perspective's gonna change because after all, this is why Jesus brought you out of darkness into the light so that he could release his inheritance in you. Would you stand with me today? Lord Jesus, we're so grateful for the cross, for the gospel. We're so grateful that you're the one who started our salvation and you're also the one who will finish our salvation. You've not left us, you've sealed us under the day of redemption. He who began a good work in us will be faithful to complete it until the day of the Lord Jesus Christ. We believe that. We are wholly confident in that. And today, Lord, help us to yield to that. Lord, we don't wanna remain in a state of immaturity. With us at the center of the universe, Jesus, we say you are the center of it all. We don't wanna live a life that's just pleasing to us, Lord, we wanna live our lives fully pleasing to you. Walking in a manner that's worthy of what you did to save us, Jesus, what you did to redeem us and rescue us out of the domain of darkness, where we were slaves, where we were captives, where we were spiritually blind and we were dead. Lord, we're so grateful that you didn't leave us there, but you came for us and you've transferred us through your blood into your kingdom, a kingdom of love, a kingdom of family, a kingdom where we're fully affirmed and called sons and daughters and where you put your spirit in us, called us friends. Lord, today I'm praying to help align our hearts with yours and to not just accept the terms of salvation, but to give ourselves to the process of maturity. Holy spirit, have your way in us. Have your way in us, Lord. We wanna be fully pleasing to you, God. While your heads are bowed and your eyes are closed and this is just a moment of privacy between you and God. This afternoon when I was praying, I sensed the Holy Spirit highlighting not so much a call to salvation as much as a call to surrender, surrender to the process. And as I was talking and going around the horn on this cycle of, or this process of maturity, believe the Holy Spirit's highlighting places in our life where maybe we willingly have lived a place for ourselves, lived a place ourselves, or we know that there's places in our life where we're not walking worthy of what Jesus paid for us. Maybe there's an apathy in our hearts towards God, an apathy, lack of hunger and appetite towards the pursuit of God. And we're just saying Lord, you're the one who puts in us both the will to do it and the ability to do it. You promised that in Philippians two, both to will and to work, your good pleasure. And here we are saying God, we may not feel it, we may not have been doing it, but we're inviting you, we're surrendering, saying Holy Spirit, stir up hunger, obedience, and a desire to please you. And if in any part of that process you know you need God to step in and stir and realign some things and you need to surrender so God can do that. Just want to lead us in a prayer today, but I want you to indicate that. I just want you to raise your hand, just say that's me, that's where I'm at. I just need God to realign. I need God to stir up a desire and an appetite once again, because I really want to surrender. I want to yield to God. Let's pray right now. I'm just gonna pray over that and then we're gonna go back into worship. But Lord, today your promise is that you would perform this in us. We can't just muster it, Holy Spirit, you're the one who seals us. And this was Paul's prayer, God, I'm praying you would answer Paul's prayer. I'm praying that you would stir that prayer and that you would lead us in this process that our eyes would be on you, Jesus, the author and the finisher of our faith. God, give us endurance, give us patience, give us passion, fan into flame once again. Fan into flame once again. Fan into flame, a love for Jesus, a first love. Lord, fan in and blow upon the embers of our love and our obedience, our desire to please you. And we surrender, God. We say have your way. In Jesus' name, amen.