Maturity Is Not Optional: Hold Fast To The Gospel | Pastor Will Hawk | February 1st, 2026

What if the point of pain wasn’t punishment but participation? We open Colossians 1:21–23 and hold the phrase “for your sake” up to the light, letting communion re-teach us who we were, who we are, and what we’re becoming. Christ didn’t hand us a map; he stepped into our alienation and reconciled us by his own body and blood so we could be presented holy, blameless, and above reproach. That purpose pulls us beyond a “get out of trouble” faith and into a life that matures, serves, and sacrifices with joy.

We talk candidly about continuing in the faith—stable, steadfast, and not shifting—and how the real anchor isn’t our perfect track record but our stubborn grip on the hope of the gospel. Expect spills. The bike isn’t the problem; the rider is learning balance. From confession without hiding to correction without shame, we explore a rhythm of growth that trades coasting for courage. Suffering becomes a classroom where God builds breadth in our love and depth in our character.

Along the way, we widen the lens: Paul rejoices in his sufferings “for your sake” and for the sake of the church he may never meet. That’s our call too. We reveal the riches of Jesus to neighbors and nations not with spectacle but with steady, sacrificial presence. We also share how we’re approaching a capital campaign through prayer, not pressure—inviting everyone to move from convenience to discipline to delight in generosity so we can pay down debt, make room to grow, and serve the community with open hands. The window for sacrifice is brief; glory closes it forever. So let’s redeem the moment, hold fast to the gospel, and ride together.

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Transcript

Scripture Reading: Colossians 1:21–23

Will Hawk 0:46

If y'all would flip uh where where should they flip if they've got a Bible?

SPEAKER_00 0:49

Uh if you got a Bible that's from the pew, it should be on page 983. We're reading Colossians 1, 21 through 23. And you who were once alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in the body of flesh by his death in order to present to you holy and blameless, blameless and above reproach before him. If indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard, which has been proclaimed in all creation under heaven, and of which I, Paul, became a minister. This is the word of the Lord.

Communion Focus: For Your Sake

Who We Were Before Christ

Reconciled By His Body And Blood

If You Continue In The Faith

The Bike Metaphor For Stumbling

Will Hawk 1:29

Amen. Thanks, Shane. Appreciate it. Also, thank you for turning off the lights on my car when I forgot them this morning. Good man. Good man. All right, guys. Uh I I think you're oh, thank you. I I don't like the thought of you having a commentary as I go, so thank you for handing that back. Uh I want to show you a passage real quick. Usually I I would kind of go title screen and the question we're gonna look at. I I want to prepare your heart for two different things, and one of them is more important than the other. Uh, I do want to talk a little bit about a capital campaign. Uh are you guys on me? There we go. Uh nope. Time out. Sorry. It's gonna be a minute. Um, I do want to talk about a capital campaign, but more importantly than that, I want us to think about communion at the end of the service. I'm not kidding when I tell you I am not sweating that God is gonna take care of his church. Always has, always will. I really enjoy being a part of the story and checking it out and sort of being able to watch. I do want everybody to be involved and we'll talk about ways and how, but nobody's gonna ask you for any money today. We're not passing a plate today. Literally, I'm just gonna ask you to pray. I'm gonna ask you to pray not for like three days, but for like three weeks. We're just gonna be asking the church to pray. However, as we get ready for that and as we get ready for communion, this is where I want your head and this is where I want your heart. 2 Corinthians 8 9, for you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich. As we think about communion, in a little while we're gonna be holding, for those of us who are in Christ and who are uh who are believers, you're gonna have a little piece of bread and you're gonna have a little cup of juice. And what I want to point to right now is this little phrase right in the middle for your sake. And the reason I want to point to it is because Paul's gonna say it twice in our passage in Colossians. And what's being pointed to here, what we're gonna see there is there is this great exchange and expectation that God has for us that he displays in Christ. But but notice what comes before it. Christ was rich, had everything. This isn't even really talking about money. It's a richness in being in heaven and being with the Father and not being steeped in the world and sin. It's a richness that comes before the brokenness of a cross. And yet, for your sake, for everyone who is a Christian, Christ said, I will literally give everything for them. And I'm gonna remind them of that throughout their Christian walk, as they hold something that symbolizes my flesh being broken, my blood being poured, that for their sake I would become poor so that you by his poverty might become rich. If you're have not been a part of Midry for a while, let me alleviate a little bit of uh anxiety as we talk about a capital campaign Sunday. I have not written a money sermon. We are gonna preach the exact next text that is what we have been doing in Colossians. There are no thermometers, there are no hard asks. Here is all I'm gonna call us to. What does it mean for our hearts to put on this embodiment of what Christ has done for us? How can we consider others who are not ourselves as we look at the supremacy and the sufficiency of Christ? So this is what uh this is what Shane read for us this morning. And you who once were, all right, Paul's about to build a list, and it's not gonna make you look really good. So if you have thin skin, take a deep breath because this is who you were prior to Christ. You who once were alienated, which means your demeanor was a back turned to God. Your demeanor was a I've got this kind of life perspective. But you weren't just alienated, you were hostile in your mind. God having authority over you, your life, your decisions, everything. It was something in your mind that would have irritated you, frustrated you, that you would have given God authority over your life. Not only that, you were doing evil deeds, which means from your disposition to your mindset to the way that you acted, Paul said this. Hey, can I just tell you who you were? Can I remind you, Christian, of who you were before the cross? You were alienated from God, hostile in mind, the things that you thought were deplorable at best, and your deeds were evil. And then he continues, all of that is true, and without erasing one bit of it, he has now reconciled. He has reunited you in his body of flesh by his death. This is what we celebrate in communion. That God didn't send a red button on the top of the highest mountain, that if you would just climb it and press it, you would make it. That God didn't decide, you know, if you give this much money or if you serve this many hours, God says, here's the deal. I'm not building a mountain. There is no red button, there is no scale of good deeds and bad deeds. I'm gonna step in to this. I'm gonna reconcile these alienated, hostile, evil people by my body being torn and my blood being shed. Eyes on me for a minute. And that would be enough for us. Can I be honest? When I was 10, and the Southern Baptist preacher that I was under, who like just pounded the thing, he never said it this way, but this was what I heard at church. Do you want to respond to Jesus and go to heaven where everything is great? Or, William, do you want to burn in hell for all eternity? I was like, bro, that is not a hard decision. Okay? I have harder decisions at McDonald's when I'm trying to figure out if I want a happy meal with a toy or more food to eat. Like, there are harder decisions in life than that. That whole idea, getting my get out of jail free card so I don't go to hell, that was enough for 10-year-old William. But it's not enough for God. You see, this whole process of reconciliation is for something. It is in order to present you, put your name in there, to present Will, to present Travis, to present Stokes, to present David, to present Carrie holy and blameless and above reproach before him. That's the goal. Maturity in Christ. Martin Luther would put it this way: a man is either in the kingdom of God or in the kingdom of the devil. There is no middle ground. When we look at this passage in Colossians 1, there is no neutral. There's no neutral in life, there's no neutral in the Christian life, there's no neutral in your decision making. We are either all in or we are left out. And he is now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death. This is the good news. It's why we call it the gospel. Gospel simply means good news that God did not give you a good book with his best advice for you to bring your best attempts to. He says, Man, I could give you a book 40 times this, and I could give you a lifespan 40 times longer. You are still gonna have a mind that is hostile to me. You are still gonna have deeds that are evil, you are still gonna have a disposition that is opposed. So I am going to step in and reunite and re-reconcile us. Now I will tell you, as a Christian, I did have a big question that came from that. It felt too easy to become a Christian if what I got for becoming a Christian was everything for all time. Have any of you guys ever wrestled with that? It just feels like it should be harder. I should have to climb a mountain. I should have to put in this many hours. It just feels too easy. And to that, Paul would say, Let me tell you what true faith looks like. How can you know that you are in Christ? Well, the next passage in 23 tells us, well, this is all true if indeed you continue in the faith. Now we get another list of three things, and you tell me how encouraged you feel. Guys, here's the great news. You get to have all of Christ for all of time, leaving behind all of the wrath that you deserve for hostile in mind, evil deeds, poor disposition to the God who created you. All you need to be, guys, so easy. All you need to be is stable and steadfast and not shifting. That's it. You just have to be like stable in everything. You never really lose your temper, you never really lose your cool, easy stuff. You're gonna be steadfast, right? Like the world's not gonna shake you, you're not gonna be anxious about stuff ever, and you're not gonna shift. Like who you are is who you are. You know the decisions before they ever come. Now, does that sound like an encouraging list to you? Yes or no? No, man. I mean, I fail in that every day. Watch what happens next. So many times we personalize things in scripture that are actually not pointed at us. You see, you will remain, if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel. Do you want to do you realize this is one of the most freeing statements you're gonna find in the first chapter of Colossians? Because you are not stable and neither am I. You are not steadfast, you are shifting. You have every reason to doubt when you look at these three things, except God says, Hey, I'm not saying you're gonna be stable in all of your thoughts, you're not gonna be shifted in your decisions. I just need you to get one thing right all the time. I need you to know that I love you no matter what. I need you to know that you can never outfail my grace. I need you to not shift from the good news that I loved you enough for my flesh to be torn and my blood to be shed. You are gonna fail. You're not gonna be steadfast or stable, and you are going to shift. But don't let go of this. I love you with an everlasting love, and I loved you before you were lovable. You're still not that lovable, okay? The more I get to know you and the more you get to know me, the more you get to know your spouse, the more you get to know anybody around you, the more you realize they're not as lovable as I thought they were. Right? I should never have coffee with anybody, right? It's easy to love people until you know them, and then the more you know them, the harder it is to love them. That's why we treat the people we're the closest with the worst, because they treat us the worst. And yet, God, who knows you better than you could possibly imagine, loves you with an everlasting love. And Paul says, Look, I need you to not fail in one thing, the good news of Jesus Christ. This is a kind of faith that allows you to stumble. This is a kind of faith that allows you to get on the bicycle of faith and fall off and scrape your knee and start bleeding and not just say, fine, then I just quit. I I'm not gonna do a poll in the room, but there are three different types of people. There's a person who doesn't get on the bike because they're afraid they're gonna fall. The person who gets on the bike and falls and says, bump this, I'm done with that. It hurts. I'm going inside and playing Nintendo. And then there's a kind of person who falls and scrapes their knee and hops back on because they saw their older brother love riding a bike and they really wanted to love it. I would submit to you that Christians, all Christians, are version three. And there is a beautiful thing to being a kid who's 12 with blood running down your knee and deciding to get back on the bicycle because you can imagine what it's like to fly down a hill. And this is what I think Christ invites us to. He's never invited us to a world where we don't fall down. We do. But when we fall down, the question is, will you trust the bike enough? The problem was never the bike, it was the person who was on it. It's the person who didn't know how to pedal while they were holding balance and operate the brake and not squeeze the left one because you go over the front. It was never the bike, it was always the rider. And if we can trust that it will hold us, all of a sudden we realize this scraped knee makes all the sense in the world. Now let me explain to you. And I won't be able to do this until you think of one of your failures. Christians, I need you to think of one of your failures. You don't need to say it out loud and you don't need to share it with anybody, but I need you to picture it. I need you to picture a failure that you were or are ashamed of. It could be from when you were 10 years old or 20 or whatever. It could have been from this morning on the way in when it was eight degrees outside and somebody forgot something, you had to run back in. I don't know. Y'all, a couple of y'all probably had a rough morning. If you got to church, it was 20 degrees warmer in our fridge than it was outside when you walked up. True story. Checked it. I want you to think of one failure in your life. And what I want you to realize is what this scripture is saying is no matter how big or how deep it is, that is simply you falling off the bike and God saying, My child, do you trust me to get back on? Do you trust that it's better? Your failure, as big as it is, is not you falling off a cliff and cracking your femur and being alone at the bottom of a chasm crying out for help. And the reason I know that is because that is what Christ did for you. See, we were never the ones on the chasm. We were never the ones who were lifted up. We were never the ones who got what we deserve because he is reconciled in his body of flesh by his death. Jesus didn't just fall off a bike, he fell off the bike down the ravine, breaking every bone along the way, so that the worst that you get is a scraped knee. This is what God wants his children to realize. And there is something when it says continuing in the faith, if you continue in the faith, I just want to give you a short list of what continuing in the faith looks like. By the way, I'm sorry that I talk so fast. I can't do anything about it. By the way, I'm sorry that I clicked through slides so quickly. I can do something about it, but I choose not to. But what we're going to do in the future is make my slides available to you while I'm preaching. So if you want them, you'll be able to have them. Apologies that I don't have that ready for today. I can probably pull it off by second service though. All right. What does it mean when Paul says if we continue in the faith? It means that we're teachable and we can receive correction. It means that when we do fail, we don't go into this woe is me mentality. It means Paul had to correct Peter and say, bro, you got back on the bike, but you're dripping blood on mom's carpet, and she's not going to be all okay with that. It is a Christian raising their hand to say, it is caring for other people to speak truth, even if it hurts for a moment. I am open to being taught. I'm open to being corrected. It is a mentality that theologians call the already, but not yet. It is an endurance that would say this. Christ has already paid for your sins. David, you pointed to this. He is already sitting on the throne, but you cannot yet see that. Faith is operating for what you know to be that you cannot yet see. That's what it means for you to continue in the faith. It means being honest about your sin and not hiding. It means trusting Jesus when he says, Open the door to your heart, let every skeleton out, because the longer you leave it in, it only harms you and the people around you. I can handle all of it. I've fallen off the bike and more than you ever will, every sin of the world placed on me. This is honesty about sin and no hiding. And there's no better Sunday than a communion Sunday. There is no better Sunday for you to be honest with God or honest with somebody in the room or send a text message to somebody that you need to to say, before I hold the symbolic broken body of Christ and the bloodshed for me, I need to be honest about this thing that I'm treating as bigger than the faith, the grace that Christ has for me. And then finally, and I've already hit this when I was hanging out with Mike and Becky, it is a Christianity that doesn't coast. It's Theobros who love reform theology not convincing themselves that the sovereignty of God means that their decisions don't matter. They do. Every one of our decisions matters. It is prayerful openness to God stretching us beyond what we are comfortable with, because if we don't, there is no church that meets in someone's backyard. Every Christian is called to this. But I do think it's important that we ask this question if we want to be honest people and recognize that there are skeptics among us, whether they're believers or not. Do we really have to scrape our knees up? Couldn't God create a world where we respond to Him and it is only joy forevermore? Do we really have to wait these 30, 40, 50 years, whatever it is, five years, before we go to heaven where there are no scraped knees and there are no tears? Why the scraped knee in the first place? The first bike that I bought, I bought for$5 at a yard sale. Uh it was an unbranded bike. It was not a diamondback or a whatever. It was an unbranded black and red bike that had electric tape going around foam that was squeezed. And I loved that bike probably more than any other bike. I rode up and down the street constantly on this bike to the point that I was convinced I could do it with my eyes closed, to which I tried. And I did very well until I rode into the back of a VW bug and went over the handle. And I never told that neighbor that, and I never told my parents that. Sorry. I'm sure it was all scratched up. My bad, but I was too embarrassed. I didn't understand all of this gospel stuff quite yet. And so I just flew over. Why the scraped knee in the first place? Let me give you two options and you tell me which one you would prefer. Option number one is you as a child of God imperfectly navigating this life, but knowing that Christ will sustain you if you will hold on to Him. It's falling to the right and scraping your knee in your thought life and falling to the left and scraping your knee in the words you say. It is letting people down and getting scratched up and embarrassed and hurt, and there's nothing worse than a scraped knee because it's in a flexible part. And even when it heals, you wake up the next morning, you bend it, and it pops, and you're like, this is the worst thing ever. All of us, I hope, have been there. If you've never scraped your knee, you just need to go run down a hill really hard, okay? It's part of life. You need to embrace it. You know what? That really is my perspective on life, and I'm realizing a lot of people don't think that way. It is. That is option one. Here's option number two. Option number two is being a 43-year-old man on a tricycle that has training wheels with a Spider-Man helmet and streamers coming out the handlebar, ringing your bell while you go down the neighborhood. Now you tell me which of those two you want to be. One of them will not ever fall, one of them will never be scraped, they will never be stretched. But I will tell you, if I saw that guy in my neighborhood, I'd be like, kids, get inside. Because there's something wrong with that. There's something wrong when you look at someone and you say, there should be this level of maturity. You should have learned things through falling. You should have learned things through running over a curb. You should have learned things through going faster than you were ready to go. But the beauty of a bike is you should have learned things from going slower than it was intended to go. You're just as likely to fall off. And I would submit to you that there is a reason that God allows our scraped knees as Christians in this life. And I think it's because of this. When we proclaim him, three jobs for Paul, when we proclaim him, when we warn everyone, not just believers, when we warn the people around us about the realities of Christ, when we teach everyone around us the good news of Jesus with all wisdom, it is the goal that we, that pastors, that Christians, would present everyone mature in Christ. That is my job description. It's the job description of every elder in this room, it's the job description of every small group leader in this room, it's the job description of every parent in this room. We are called as Christians to present to Christ. Every single individual mature in Christ. To this I toil, struggling with all his energy, the energy that God powerfully works in us. This is why the Christian life includes sacrifice. This is why the Christian life includes suffering, because godly suffering and meaningful sacrifice matures believers better than anything else can. You will never learn a thing on a tricycle with training wheels except that you're missing out on something greater. And the Christian life is no different. If you wonder why, as a believer, it feels like so long since you have just enjoyed the grandeur of God, since you have flew down the hill of his grace. It might be because you never took off the training wheels in the first place. Because you were too afraid that if you stretched yourself a bit, you might just scrape your knee. To which God would say, Son, scrape your knee. You're going to learn more from sacrifice. You're going to learn more from suffering than comfort could ever create. This is why the Christian life includes suffering. Give me the scraped knee. Give it to me five times if it means that I can drop the training wheels and enjoy coasting down a large hill unhindered. But what's crazy about it is this that's the way I think. I want to fly down the hill. I want to enjoy the ride. Paul is so much of a better Christian than me. Because when he thinks of his suffering, look at what he says. I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake. He's saying, I want to be mature, not because of what it's going to do for me, but what it's going to do for the people around me. I want to be the older brother who has scars on his knees because my younger brothers are going to want to ride on the mountain bike and fly down the hill. I want them to see me howling down the hill.

unknown 24:47

Woo!

Honest Confession And No Hiding

No Coasting Christianity

Will Hawk 24:48

The best is skiing. When you I used to teach my kids how to how to ski by putting a harness on them, and I would have these two belts that would come to me. And if you don't do that, all you do is sound like an angry Italian skiing where you just go pizza the whole way down a slope, okay? So I would put that on them, and it would be 30 minutes. And my boys would say, Dad, just get this thing off of me. I feel like a baby. I'm like, you are a baby. They were this. They're like, I just can't. Like, I'd rather go into a tree than have this thing on me any longer. And guess who learned how to ski really quickly? Those kids. Why? Because they saw everybody around them, and they did see people fall. And Paul says, I rejoice in my sufferings. I rejoice in my skin needs because of what it does for you. In fact, in my flesh, I'm filling up what's lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is the church. Don't miss this. Paul is saying, I rejoice in my sufferings for you. Because there are kinds of hard work and sacrifice that produce a joy that comfort never could. That's what happens when you say, okay, Lord, take our property and use it so that this little church plant can get a start. That's what happens when every one of us decides we want to be a part of the next chapter that God is writing here at Midtree. And I know y'all want more details, but just let me be the philosophical theological guy for a minute, and I'll talk to you about numbers in the weeks ahead. For now, I just want you to realize there's a joy that comes from hard work and sacrifice that you're gonna miss with a training wheel type of Christianity. This is who you want to be. I promise you, you want to be the one who goes and waits on the bathroom because there's only one, because of what it does for you. You want to be the one climbing the rafters, you want to be the one on the church plant team. Let me see if I can do this just because it's fun. You want to be the one who used to look that young. Look at Stokes and Trent and Bruner. Look at them. These were good cameras back in the day, too, believe it or not. That was a Canon Rebel EOS. That's not true. I just know it's a decent camera. That's who you want to be. I rejoice in my suffering for your sake, but it doesn't even stop there. In the event that you're missing what I'm trying to build, suffering for your own sake is a good thing as a Christian. Suffering for the sake of others, Paul elevates to a higher level of maturity, but then he takes it to this third step. He says, I'm not just suffering for your sake. In my flesh, I'm filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, the church. Do you know what percentage of God's body, the church, you know? 0.0000. I would have to keep going for a while. One. This is what you call church. Millions of people whose names you do not know and faces you have never seen. For those of you who are in Christ, you will have the chance to meet them in eternity. Gather together today. And Paul is saying, My suffering isn't just for me, though that's beneficial. My suffering isn't even for the people who see me, my little brothers. My suffering is for a body I don't even fully know because he's writing this letter to a church he's never met. This is a level of for your sake that Christ takes on. I want to suffer so that my story would be told and my maturity would be seen by people I may never see. So I rejo rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, but also for the sake of the body. And when he says, I'm filling up what's lacking in Christ, he's not saying Jesus came so close to forgiving your sins that you need to add a little bit. It's not what he's saying at all. He's saying Jesus fell down the cliff all the way to the basement bottom of the sin of the world. He paid for it. There is no question Christ is not lacking in his salvation. What he's saying is he hadn't finished yet. His church is still being built. People are still being drawn into his kingdom. And Paul says, I'm raising my hand for that. I'm raising my hand to give of myself my time, my talent, my treasure, my being, not just for my maturity, not just for the people I already know. I'm giving it for a body. He didn't know it. He was writing this to you. Paul suffered for you. I was reading this a couple of weeks ago. I won't use her name because she wouldn't want me to use it. But about eight of us were sitting in my room. We were reading through this and doing preaching primer stuff. And how does this hit you? How does it stretch you? And one of the ladies in the room said this. She said, I'm so convicted because as I read these words, I know that Paul is anguishing in a cell. And I'm reading the same words he wrote, sitting on a comfortable couch. And I feel like there's got to be more to it than just reading his words. There's got to be more for me. There's got to be more for an American. There's got to be more for someone that God has blessed so much. Well, what is that more? Just keep reading. Paul says the mystery hidden for ages and generations, this would be the gospel. Pay close attention, if you would. This message of good news has been revealed to his saints, God's kids, to them, God chose to make known how great among the Gentiles, unbelievers, are the riches of the glory of the gospel. If I take that and I put it in a much more boiled-down English vernacular, here's what is being said. God's children make known to unbelievers the riches of Jesus. You show the unbelieving world the treasure that is Christ. And when I I when I meet with people and I talk with people, this happened more in youth ministry than it does in adult ministry, but it still happens. I would have people say, Well, if God wants to rescue people, why did he quit using angels? It seemed to be a really effective strategy. If he wants to reach more people, why does it seem like miracles don't happen as much anymore? Like I want a messenger, I want a miracle. And when you look at your story and you say, Well, I don't have a stage testimony, false. You were alienated, hostile, and doing evil deeds. And Christ said, I love that guy, I love that girl, I'm gonna dive down this clip, cliff headfirst, so that at their worst, in trusting in me, they scrape their knee, that they would become mature, that they would become like me, that they would live for the sake of others, that they would live for the sake of others they don't even know yet. What is Paul trying to say? Maturity is not optional for the Christian, and it is not Christianity premium. I cannot tell you how much I love this concept because I spend my life on apps trying to cruise control that free service for as long as possible, and then creating another email and then cruising on that free way. I did it way more in college, Thomas. You're probably better at it now than I am. There is just this thing where I don't want to pay for something if I don't have to pay for something. There is no Christianity premium. It's just you becoming more like Christ. And every Christian, every Christian is expected to be mature in Christ. And when you become mature in Christ, all of a sudden, those scrape knees, everything begins to change. I want you to know all of these P's came to me in a moment, and I'm crediting the Holy Spirit, and there was no chat GPT used on this. Okay? You don't have to care, you don't have to like it. What's up, Scott? Get ready to play me out. All right? I love this. When you think of suffering, when you think of sacrifice, a mature Christian doesn't see it as punishment, they see it as participation. This isn't bad little boy, go stand in the corner. This is the kind of suffering where you and your teammates run lines for an hour until all of you are puking. Are you miserable? You better believe it. But at the end, you don't feel ashamed. At the end, you don't feel alone. You feel like a part of something. That is what suffering with Christ. That is what sacrificing for Christ does. It brings this unity. It takes suffering and sacrifice, and it makes it less personal and it makes it more purposeful. This isn't about me. It's about Christ. This is not the flu alone in bed. This is the kind of sacrifice where you have a bad day at work. You're supposed to have the church over to your house, and it'd be easy to cancel because one of your kids has a fever, but you decide, you know what? Every time we do it, it's worth it. And I don't feel like doing it now, but I am trusting that what I'm dealing with is not personal, it is purposeful. God needs me to have a rough day and love him anyway, and put that on display. Didn't know I was gonna be able to rhyme that, but I'll take it. It moves it from being pitiable to powerful. Christians don't sulk. We get credit today when we're patient, and a person is said to have the patience of Job. But Job didn't start that way. Read chapter 38. It took all the way to chapter 42 for him to say, God, you are in control of everything. Bring what you may that your glory would be put on display. And my favorite is number four. It takes sacrifice and suffering from being a perpetual thing. Do I really have to give one more thing? Do I have to give more time? Do I have to fall off my bike and get scraped again? Do I have to love that other difficult person? It moves it from being perpetual to poignant because, Christian, hear this from me. You will never get to suffer again once you go to heaven. The opportunity to suffer for Christ and fill up what is lacking in his body, the church, does have an expiration date. You will never be able to suffer again when you enter glory. You will never be able to sacrifice again. This is the only time you have to do it. So do it. Which is why Paul can say this. Of all of the difficulties he has dealt with, and they were many, he says, When I think of my affliction, my sacrifice, my suffering, brother, it is light and it is momentary. Because what I realize is it is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all compare. I will ride this bike into eternity and never fall from it. Because maturity is not optional and it's not Christianity premium. Chapter 1, verse 28, Paul starts with it. I just read it to you. It'll end in chapter 4, verse 12 in Colossians, where Epaphras praise it over the church. But what Mike and Becky experienced is what all of us are being invited to, and many of you have been through numerous iterations of this. Him we proclaim. This is what we do, church. We warn those around us and we teach those around us that we may, every one of us, be mature in Christ. So I will toil, I will struggle with his energy. The job of a pastor is to present everyone mature in Christ. And when we talk about a capital campaign, there's no elaborate scheme, there's no emotional plea. Here it is. I just want you to be mature in Christ. That's it. Some of you already are, some of you may not be, but my goal is not to pay off a building or expand a property or create opportunities for new ministry. God does that. He does it all the time. You are my greatest concern that you would not miss out on the opportunity to grow in maturity. I don't want to be a 40-year-old hill, a 40-year-old man looking at a hill, too scared to go down it because I'm on a tricycle with training wheels. No, I want to fly down the hill with joy in my heart. And when we do, the people around us see it and they say, I want to be a part of that. I want that kind of faith. I want that kind of love. And we do it for, this may be the biggest maturity piece for some of you in the room. We do it for their sake. We don't do it that we would have more room in the sanctuary. We don't do it so that we would have more parking. We do it for their sake. We do it for the faces we've never seen and the names that we never know, which by the way was you five iterations ago and six iterations ago. God wants us to enjoy the ride so much that others decide to get on. So here is what I'm asking you to pray about specifically. The goals for our capital campaign are to pay off our debt, to create room to grow, which might include expanding our property and reaching our neighbors by flying down a hill with joy in our hearts and actually spending time and energy on what goes to the left and to the right of that stop sign. This is what I want you to begin praying for. There's no basket about to be packed. We're not asking for anything. We're about to distribute to you the goodness of Christ, okay? This is the opposite of a hard sell. This is what the pastors believe we need to be going after in the next couple of years. We think that's probably gonna be about four million dollars for us to do all of those things. But before you begin wrestling with that, this is the bigger concern. If you're a Christian in the room, let me define maturity for you. The Bible tells us that where our money is, our heart will be, where what we care for, our wallet shows a lot about our heart. If you've never given, I don't want you to give to the capital campaign. I just want you to give something. If you've only given when it's been sort of a convenience, I want you to move towards discipline and move towards more of a tithing method where giving is a regular thing for you. And then I want us to find delight in saying, Lord, we're holding our lives with an open hand. What would you do with this? Because you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich. This is the good news. And if you're not a regular attender, and if you're not a member of the church, I don't want you to think about either of those lists of three. I just want you to think about this one. Are you right with a God who has paid so much to be right with you? Are you seeking Him to be mature? And do you care about the people around you? That is the progression of salvation to sanctification to living on mission. So wherever you are, this is where I will leave us this morning as we get ready to respond in communion. So prepare your hearts and we'll keep you informed in the days ahead.