Awesome. All right. I'm glad y'all are able to greet and get to know one another. There's plenty of places to eat around here after the service as well, if y'all want to go grab a meal together. But my name is Jonah Faulkner. I'm the student pastor at our Walnut Grove campus for Church to Grove. Nathan is over there, down there, up there, whatever direction it is. He is in Walnut Grove this morning, preaching there. So I get to fill in. He will be back next week. I know he was gone last week too. So if you're a first-time guest, you're here this morning, or you're here last week, and you have yet to meet Nathan, he'll be back next week. Okay. Come back. Come back if you don't uh enjoy this morning. But we are glad that you're here, excited to continue this series titled Rules of Engagement. So when I went off to college uh almost nine years ago now, which is crazy to think about, I was in a very interesting spot in my faith journey. Uh I kind of grew up in the church, spent my entire life going to church, going to youth group, going to all the summer camps, uh doing all the Christian things, and I had kind of built up this reputation of being a good kid, but I had uh certainly had a little bit of a prodigal son season of my life, my freshman year of college. Uh, for the first time in my life, I was out from underneath the roof of my parents' house, and I had freedom uh that I didn't need and freedom that I had never experienced before. And each day, um, truthfully, my freshman year of college, it felt like I was turning my back to God more and more, and then giving my heart over to the world more and more all at the same time. I was actively running away from God in the purpose uh that that ultimately he had for me, and I didn't even I didn't even know it. But unlike the story of the prodigal son, in that story there's uh there's this scene where the younger son, after he's run away from the father, it says that he comes to his senses. Um for me, my story, I did not come to my senses on my own. Um, but instead, I got some sense knocked into me uh by someone who became one of my very best uh friends in life. And even though, again, I was actively running away from God, I still try to keep up this good appearance in college, was still kind of attending some churches down there, and I was uh also going to this campus ministry, uh, but I had no intentions of actually growing in my discipleship uh to Jesus. I was just trying to put up a good appearance. Um, and as you can imagine, uh the ministry director, uh, as we got closer and closer, he kind of saw what was happening in my life. That I was doing one thing on Sunday mornings or when we would meet as a as a campus ministry, but living a completely different life outside of that. So um again, he so lovingly uh called me out on my hypocrisy. He saw through the mask that I was putting on, and he knew what my life looked like when I wasn't inside a church building. And he challenged me to consider whether I really believed that Jesus is Lord, because he knew I was not living my life like I believe that Jesus is Lord. And he challenged me. Um, so lovingly, he challenged me. And as you can imagine, at first I kind of fought, I fought back against it. If I'm being honest, it kind of made me a little angry. I'd spent my whole life doing all the Christian things and building up this reputation. And who was this guy to question my relationship with God, right? I'd known this guy for a couple months. Who was he to question my relationship with God? But by God's grace, I slowly started to realize that God and my friend Ricky that he just wanted more for me. Right? He saw how miserable I was deep down, and he reminded me that there was a better way to life. There was a better way through Christ. And it was uncomfortable. It was an uncomfortable conversation, but again, it brought me to my senses. It was a conversation of friendship that turned me back to the Father. So I tell that story to really ask this question. What if God's goal for relationships isn't mainly my comfort, but it's my growth? What if God's goal for relationships and friendships and families and marriages isn't mainly for our comfort, but it's for our growth? This whole series, uh Rules of Engagement, has been about managing difficult relationships. That's the water that we're all swimming in. That is really what life is all about. How do we manage all the different relationships that we have? And in our culture, we've basically been discipled by this idea that if somebody is hard, if somebody is difficult, if somebody disagrees with you, if someone tells you something that you don't want to hear, if someone challenges you, then the answer is simple. You just cut them off and you go your own way and you leave them in the dust. And these are things that we might not say out loud or say as harshly, but it's definitely things that we oftentimes believe and a mindset that we oftentimes have. And it's it is easy to see how uh we've probably gotten here, and even how our the culture we live in has gotten here because we've all been through uh betrayal. We've all been through hurt, we've all had people talk about us behind our back, we've had family members maybe manipulate us, we've been through real church hurt that still stings and brings back bad memories. And as a result, the world tells us just remove them, those things, remove those people from your life. But there is a really big problem that happens with that. We've gotten so used to labeling anything that is hard as something that is toxic, that we've started treating every uncomfortable conversation like it's unsafe, and we begin to run away from those things, and we run away from anyone who challenges us and we view them as the enemy. But the problem with that is the longer that we live in this way, the more our life really just becomes this echo chamber. The more we just surround ourselves with people who tell us the things that we want to hear and not the things that we actually need to hear, we only associate with people who affirm us, but not people who actually care about forming us into the image of Jesus. So while there are truly toxic situations in people, and as I go through this sermon, I am not talking about true toxic, manipulative, um, destructive relationships or situations that you might find yourself in in life. There are real dangerous people and situations, but for the most part, the things that we label as toxic probably aren't that toxic. Because sometimes it's God's way of trying to bring about maturity and growth into our life through his people. And what I'm talking about this morning, again, it's not uh abusive situations or manipulative situations. I'm talking about the normal friction that we might experience in our relationships in life, normal conflict, iron-sharpening iron. I'm talking about the relationships where people love you enough to say, hey, something's off. You're off right now, you're headed the wrong direction, your eyes aren't set on Jesus, or this isn't okay. I see some areas for growth in your life. And unfortunately, this mindset not only happens in our friendships or marriages or whatever it may be, but it also happens in the church. We don't like a hard word, we don't like a hard season, we don't like something that someone said, so we pack up and we find a new place to go and fill a seat on a Sunday morning. We call it a fresh start, but sometimes it's really just avoiding the things that God is really wanting to do deep within our hearts. So when relationships get hard, the world says cut ties, but Jesus really does say stay and grow. Stay and mature. So we have learned to protect our peace, but we've in the midst of this kind of lost our formation and discipleship to Jesus. So our big idea for this morning is this that spiritual maturity is forged in community, not found in comfort. It's forged. It's forged. Like gold refined by fire in community, not found in comfort. So I'm gonna pray for us and then we're gonna open up God's word. Um, Father, we are grateful for the good news of the gospel, that the kingdom of heaven is near. God, that we were lost and we were separated, but through your son Jesus, you're inviting us in, not just a relationship with you personally, but you have invited us in as a people to be citizens of your kingdom, citizens of heaven. And I just pray that through your scripture, God, you would strengthen uh our church by your grace. God, that you would open our eyes, open our hearts to receive your word, um, give us wisdom and understanding, truthful interpretation, and would you make each one of us like Christ and use this church to bring glory to your name. We love you and we pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. So again, spiritual maturity is forged in community, not found in comfort. Um, and again, just like any probably big idea that you might hear here on Sunday morning, this isn't just a nice church slogan, but it's actually how Jesus designed growth to work, how he designed maturity and Christlieness to take place in our life. So now we're gonna open up to Ephesians 4. Again, this the series Rules of Engagement. We're we're pretty much walking through the last half of the book of Ephesians because it really is Paul's wisdom and ultimately the Lord's word on how we live in relationship with other people. And this is what we're gonna see this morning that Jesus gives grace and he gives people. Jesus gives grace and he gives people. So starting in Ephesians 4, verse 7, it says, Now grace was given to each one of us according to the measure of Christ's gift. And this word gift, it sometimes can kind of throw us off because if you have have grown up in church, you might automatically start thinking of the spiritual gifts that the Lord absolutely gives to his people, but this isn't really the kind of gift that Paul is talking about in this verse. He's not talking about necessarily a spiritual gift that we might receive, but he's talking about the gift of grace that we all receive through the person of Jesus. This foundational gift of grace. In the first week of the series, we looked at this word uh grace in Ephesians 2 and kind of reached this conclusion that grace really is just the Lord's unmerited favor towards his people. It's the Lord giving us a gift that we have done absolutely nothing to deserve. It is by his grace, his good gift, his grace that that we're saved. That we're saved. But here in Ephesians 4, Paul is showing us this other dimension of grace that we oftentimes don't really think about. Typically, when we think about grace, uh, we think about the grace that that saves us, that brings us into the kingdom of God for the first time. But grace is also God's unmerited favor that strengthens us to live out our calling as followers of Jesus. So, in other words, grace isn't just what God gives you at conversion, like this one-time deposit, this one-time gift, but it's really what God keeps giving you as you walk with Christ each and every day. It is by God's grace that we would ever become more like Jesus. Grace is what empowers, transforms sinners to obey when obedience is hard. Grace is what empowers you to overcome sin when temptation is strong. Grace is what empowers you to serve when you're tired or empowers you to stay engaged in community when everything in you wants to run, avoid, and disappear. Grace doesn't just get you into the family of God, but it grows you up in the family of God. And left to ourselves, we are not sufficient for the life that God calls us to after we say yes to Jesus. We can't do it. We can't do it on our own. We will stumble, we'll drift, we'll quit, and we need God's grace to sustain the work that He wants to do in our life, at our in our homes, at our work, and really all throughout every area of our life. And this is especially true in our relationships with one another. Jesus gives us this gift of grace so that we can live in community with other people. And that grace shows up as people given to the church. So skipping down to verse 11, we see Paul says that he himself, talking about Christ, has given some to be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors, and some teachers. So what does Jesus give? He gives us this gift of grace, and then he also gives us this list of people apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, teachers. These are leadership roles within the church. But Paul's not saying look at these important people. His point is that Jesus gives people to people, that people are part of God's gift to us. Jesus is giving these gifted believers to the church, and this is the part of the grace really that he has blessed the church with. And our culture, when it comes to the people that we just listed out, these positions that Paul lists out here in Ephesians 4, our culture has absolutely tried to reshape and redefine who and what these individuals are. We live in a world of influencers and building platforms and acquiring followers and getting this huge podcast platform and this audience, and it's easy for us to lose sight of what Paul is really getting at here with these people that God has blessed his church with. These apostles, prophets, evangelists, pastors, teachers are not the important people. They're not the important people. They aren't the stars of the church. They aren't meant to be the pros and the ones that do everything. These individuals aren't meant to be celebrities, but instead, Paul is saying that they're gifts. They're gifts. Jesus doesn't send stars to the church, but instead he sends servants to serve and love the church. And Jesus, in his grace, is providing what his people, his church, needs. These are people that aren't meant to be admired from a distance, but they are gifts from the Lord that God has given and wants us to use as a tool to develop and form us into the image of Jesus. So if you're wondering why does Jesus give these gifts, why does Jesus give these people? Paul tells us in the very next verse, what is the point of the apostles and the prophets and the pastors and the teachers? It says in verse 12, to equip the saints for the work of the ministry, to build up the body of Christ until we all, you and me, reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of God's Son. Listen, growing into maturity with a statured measured by Christ's fullness. Maturity measured by Christ's fullness. So we see that the goal of God's church isn't attendance, it's maturity, it's growth. Why does Jesus give these these gifts? Paul says it plainly, to equip the saints for the work of the ministry. That's the point of God's church. When Paul says equip, he's using this word that's stronger than teach a class or or hand out a book that tells you how to do everything. That's not the point of this word, equip. And the Greek word behind this has the idea of making something fit or preparing something fully through training and discipline. But it also carries this other picture of mending and restoring, putting something back the way that it was supposed to be. And even outside the Bible, this word throughout history has been used in the medical settings for for resetting a broken bone. So if you think about this, when you break a bone, you can't just tell someone, hey, walk it off, rub some dirt on it. I broke plenty of bones growing up, and that was that what typically was my mom's especially first response, just to give it a couple days and make sure I was really being serious. But when someone breaks a bone, that's not the response. You can't just say, suck it up, get over it. You need someone skilled who knows what they're doing to bring it back into alignment, stabilize it, and then healing can actually start taking place. And when you think about it this way, this is really a beautiful picture of what Jesus is doing within his church, of the purpose of the church. Because a lot of people come into our church, they're broken. We're all broken. We all have different areas of our life where we are broken, where we might be crushed by the pain of life and we're carrying shame and guilt, or we're stuck in sin patterns, and we need redemption, we need breakthroughs. Some of us have wounds from family and church hurt. So when Paul says leaders are given to equip the church, part of what he means is that God uses the church to mend broken people, to bring restoration into the lives of broken people so that we can function as God has intended us to function and live. Because mending isn't the end game. God doesn't just just reset a broken bone so that we can sit on the couch and then protect it forever, but instead, God resets a broken bone and he brings restoration into our lives so that we can run, so that we can run, we can work, we can serve and do work for his kingdom, so that we can get back to the purpose that he has created us for. And this is why Paul says the whole point of the church and its leaders and its elders is to equip the saints for the work of the ministry. So the church, this what we do every Sunday morning, it's the purpose of it isn't just a healing room where you come and you get patched up, but it's also a training room where healed people become equipped people, and equipped people become active ministers in the body and in the community. Where broken people become disciples of Jesus that go and make more disciples of Jesus. But again, sadly, this isn't probably how most people see the church or even view the church's leaders. For most people, the the modern American church really has has probably become more about entertainment. And it's more so through the mindset of what does this church have to offer me? How do most people decide where to attend church? It's not always because of God calling them there and placing them there, but it's based on how good the programs are, how good the kids' ministries are, how good the worship is, all these different things, and and not necessarily against any of these things being good. They can absolutely be tools, but they they should never, ever be the main thing or the main focus. We can often confuse the goal of the church and falsely believe that the goal is just to get bigger and bigger, to build a bigger and bigger church, drawing more people on Sunday mornings. As if the wind is just getting people to attend our Sunday morning gatherings or to fill seats or have good attendance numbers or whatever it may be. And again, this isn't altogether bad. We shouldn't neglect the gathering of believers. We should want to bring people in to hear the good news of the gospel, but the goal is not to build good attendees. The goal isn't even to build a lot of attendees. The goal is maturity, the goal is to build disciples of Jesus. Ephesians 4 is trying to kill this spectator Christianity that has absolutely plagued our country. That's what Paul is fighting against. He's saying that our goal, it really should be to be to reach unity in the faith and the knowledge of God's Son, growing into maturity with a stature, a stature measured by Christ's fullness. Paul wants to see the church come to full maturity, and this involves knowledge. It involves learning more, but it's more than just collecting Bible facts or knowing Bible stories. Instead, spiritual maturity is truth that's that's been internalized. It's faith that becomes action. You can have all the knowledge in the world but still miss the point because the Bible is full of those stories. The Bible is full of those stories. So maturity isn't just I know more, but it's it's faith that is lived out in action. Maturity is what happens when we we read stories about the the or read stories about Jesus and the gospels, and then we believe this or start to see those stories take place in our own lives. We start to see how Jesus shows up in the way that we talk and the way that we forgive people, the way that we serve people, how we handle conflict, how we treat people who are different, how you respond when you're corrected. And according to this verse, growth and maturity is not measured by what you do. That's that's really the way that we love to measure our growth and maturity, is by what we're doing. Are we doing enough? Are we doing this? Are we doing that? Are we going to church every Sunday, reading our Bibles, all these different things? But according to this verse, maturity is not measured by the things that you're doing, but it's really measured by the person that you're becoming. And it's the question, is the question isn't, am I doing enough? Am I doing enough to please God? The question is, am I becoming more like Christ? Am I growing into the stature of the fullness of Jesus? Paul wants people to grow in maturity because he knows it's dangerous when we live in immaturity. Listen to what he says next in verse 14. He says, Then, when we grow into the stature of the fullness of Christ, he says, Then we will no longer be little children, tossed by the waves and blown around by every wind of teaching, by human cunning, with cleverness and the techniques of deceit. So again, we see here the immaturity of Is dangerous. There's a danger to it. Immaturity is seen in little children that are being tossed by the waves and blown around by every wind of teaching. And to me, that that phrase, taught toss around in the waves, that's something that, like when I read that, I can feel it, right? Anybody ever I love boogie boarding. Anybody ever been boogie boarding before? But sometimes you get underneath a wave and you're just along for the ride, right? We all have have probably experienced that in some point of our lives, this feeling of just being tossed around by the waves. It's such a vivid picture, and we can feel the lack of stability. We can feel the feeling of getting moved around by a force that's that's bigger than us. And this feeling of just simply being along for the ride. This is what immaturity does in our life. When you don't have discernment, every new idea sounds like the truth. Every new voice feels like an authority. Every new trend becomes your new conviction. Every TikTok that has anything to do with God instantly becomes truth, even though people who have no biblical foundation are sharing messages to the masses that might sound good, but they're far from the truth. Immaturity is dangerous because it gets us off course from the direction, the purpose, the calling that God has for our lives. And when you're immature, again, you're easy to move around, you're easy to be shaped and molded because you aren't able to recognize what the truth really is. And when you're mature, you become more stable. And maturity isn't knowing everything, but it's it's knowing enough to also discern what is truth and what is not. And being able to listen without being swept away. The writer of Hebrews, he kind of says it this way in Hebrews 5. He says, Although by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you the basic principles of God's revelation again. You need milk, not solid food. Now, everyone who lives on milk is inexperienced with the message about righteousness because he is an infant. But solid food is for the mature. For those who have whose senses have been trained to distinguish between good and evil, or truth and lies. We need to grow in maturity so we can discern between good and evil, between what's true and what's false. But going back to the main point of the sermon, we will never grow immaturity, never be able to do this apart from community, apart from God's church. God has placed this community around us to speak hard truths to us sometimes when we need to hear them the most. We need correction at times, we need accountability, we need people in our life who will stabilize us, who will correct us when we're walking astray, who will point us to the truth that Jesus gives us. And if we're quick to write people off to say things that we don't like in the moment, or to choose a church based on how palatable their message is to our ears, then we will never grow into maturity. We'll keep living off milk and being tossed around by the waves of life. So how do we prevent this? How do we fight against this grain of our culture? And Paul kind of kind of ends it by saying this. He says, But speaking the truth in love, let us grow in every way into him who is the head, Christ. So we see that growth requires truth spoken in love. Maturity, becoming more like Christ, requires other people speaking truth into our lives in love. We need people to speak truth into our lives. We are so easily led astray by the enemy's lies. We believe lies about ourselves, we believe lies about God, we believe lies about our identity and our purpose, we believe lies about our future. So it is imperative that we have people in our life who are speaking the truth into our life. Going back to the opening story that I kind of shared, I needed someone, like I said, to knock some sense into me because God knows I wasn't just going to come to my senses by myself. So he sent someone, he sent a gift through the form of a person to speak truth into my life in love. So again, Paul doesn't say, just say we need people to speak truth, but it's people that speak truth in love. And oftentimes loving people can avoid truth in fear of hurting somebody or making somebody mad or even causing maybe some healthy conflict. I know that's is probably definitely more towards where I lean. I'm usually pretty scared to maybe have hard conversations that I know I need to have with someone. But true love is seen when we speak truth to one another. And Paul is saying that the church grows when we do this. The church becomes more like Christ when we live this out, when we're speaking truth in love. I read something that says this. It says, Love without truth is enabling. Love without truth is enabling. Truth without love is brutality. But truth in love is maturity. Trip Prince says it like this. He says, Truth gives definition and direction to love, but love gives compassion and kindness to truth. We are called to have these hard conversations, not to breed and create conflict, but to breed and create Christ-likeness. This is so important because, again, we live in this cutoff culture that fights against spiritual maturity. So if every time someone confronts you, you ghost them or you run away. If every time a pastor says something hard, you leave the church. If every time someone lovingly rebukes you, you label them as toxic, if you do these things, then you're cutting yourself off from one of the primary tools that God uses to grow you, to bring maturity, people speaking truth in love. And then Paul then tells us in Ephesians 4.16, he says, From him the whole body, fitted and knit together by every supporting ligament, promotes the growth of the body for building itself up in love by the proper working of each individual part. In other words, that verse pretty much tells us that God grows the whole body through the whole body. God grows the body of the church through the body of the church. Each one of us working with one another, mended together, knitted together, living out the purpose, using the gifts that God has given us. That's when growth occurs. God grows the whole body through the whole body. Growth is not just about your private spirituality. Your spiritual maturity is not just about your personal relationship with God. Sometimes we make it, we we individualize everything. But really it's about whether you're connected to the body and then also whether you're doing your part and you're contributing to the body of Christ in the way that God has created and gifted and purposed for you to contribute. Because when every part does its part, the body grows. That's what we see again in Proverbs 27, 17. This idea of iron sharpens iron, and one person sharpens another. Sharpening that it implies friction and pressure, maybe some conflict, but the goal isn't damage. Instead, it's it's sharpness. We need others to sharpen us, to say hard things so that we can be the men and the women that God has called us to be. Mature in our faith, not tossed around by the waves of this world, the deceptive teachings that we may come across. So as we we kind of end um, or as I kind of wrap up this this sermon, uh, I really think that the challenge from this this passage of Scripture is this this simple idea that we have to reframe our relationships. Meaning we we have to reframe the way that we we think about our relationships, reframe the purpose that we think our relationships have for us. Some of us need to reframe the way that we evaluate relationships. It's not about whether people are making you happy, but it's about whether you are actually growing in those relationships. Is God growing you through those relationships? It's not about whether we feel tension, but it's but it's about are we engaging in a healthy way? It's not about whether someone hurts our feelings, but is there truth that I need to receive, even if it is a little bit uncomfortable? Even if it does make me a little angry or irritated at first. So to kind of wrap up, I want to share a few practices uh that we can do to practically start, again, reframing our relationships, viewing our relationships as a as a means of growth and spiritual maturity rather than just a means for comfort and something that gives us something out of these relationships. The first thing is this uh the first practice is to encourage daily. Again, iron sharpens iron. We know that that God uses the body knit together to bring about growth. So what we learn from that is that we play a role, right? We play a role in this. So before we ask ourselves how someone else is helping us grow into maturity, we also got to ask ourselves, how are we helping someone else grow into maturity? Again, it's not always just about us. How is it helping us? How is it helping us? But it's also, what am I doing? What am I doing to help someone else grow into the image of Jesus? What am I doing to help help bring about some spiritual maturity in the life of someone else? So this is where encouragement comes in, the practice of just encouraging someone each and every day. So the action step here is intentionally encouraging someone every day this week. Seven encouragements, seven texts, seven phone calls, seven conversations, whatever, whatever it may look like. And being specific and intentional. Some of the most powerful conversations I've ever had is just going up to someone and saying, I see in you, and then fill in the blank. Man, I see I see the Lord working in your life in this way. I see the way that you've grown in this way, matured in this way. I see this talent that you have. And then the follow-up might be, I also see that you're not, maybe you're not using that talent in the way that the Lord might have purpose for you. So it's a I see in you conversation. It's a it's a thank you for this conversation. It's a I'm praying over you specifically for this. Just texting someone, letting them know that you're praying for them, that you see them, that you're there for them. So who is one person God is is prompting you to strengthen and encourage instead of always maybe critiquing or being pessimistic about something? The second practice is inviting feedback. Invite feedback. This is one, this is where it starts to get a little uncomfy for us. So the action step would be to pick one trusted believer, one trusted follower of Jesus, one trusted person that you know is putting their nose in a Bible every single day. And inviting feedback from that trusted person. Don't go post it on Facebook. You don't want to do that. No one wants that. Invite one trusted person, one trusted believer to bring some feedback into your life. Ask, what's one area you think I need to grow in right now? Or ask, is there anything that you see in my life that I might not see myself? Any any any sin patterns, any any anger, any frustration, any jealousy that you see in my life that I might not see myself? And then it's putting up guardrails, meaning you you go into those conversations ready to receive whatever feedback they might have to offer. You're ready to receive it humbly, with a soft heart, soft mind, soft soul. You don't defend, but instead you receive their feedback and then you pray over it and you you wrestle with the Lord of what he might be trying to say to you through that person's feedback and through their encouragement on your life. And then the last step is the simple practice to stay engaged even when it's hard. To stay engaged when every part of you wants to run somewhere else or go find a new friend or go find a new church or even more drastic than that, run away from a marriage or run away from a family when it when it's when it gets difficult, stay engaged when it's hard. And this again, this isn't permission for abuse or or toxic control or anything like that, but for for normal conflict, normal tension, don't run. Instead, be slow to speak, quick to listen. Learn from conversations and and and learn learn forgiveness, learn repentance, learn what boundaries might look like. But as we close, I just want you to imagine, imagine kind of if we if as a church, again, we we just live, if we just live out God's word. Imagine a church where people stay even when things get difficult, where they don't vanish when they're challenged, or imagine a group of people where, or imagine a group where people aren't just accepted, but they also, but also where truth is spoken in love. Imagine a place where marriages and friendships grow stronger because hard conversations happen. Imagine a place when when people resist the pull to comfort and live in community because that's where spiritual maturity always happens. Um so I'm gonna kind of close this in in prayer. Um, and just really for the response, uh it's it's just the encouragement to position yourself, get yourself ready however that looks, to just listen for the Lord's voice for a little bit. Um and we're gonna kind of close in prayer, and I I kind of have a couple questions I just want you to ask and kind of wrestle with with the Lord, or or if you want to pair up, however you want to do it, whatever you need to do to get yourself ready to listen for the Lord's voice. Um but the first question is this just just wrestle with the Lord a little bit with this, and ask yourself, is my comfort the main goal of my relationships, or is it maturity? When it comes to our friendships, our marriages, relationships with kids, in those relationships, is our main goal comfort and just being happy, or is it maturity and Christ-likeness? And then when it comes to maturity, maybe maybe wrestle with this by asking yourself, am I measuring maturity by how much I'm doing, how often I go to church, how often I read my Bible, or do I measure maturity by who I am becoming? Do I measure maturity by asking myself, am I becoming more like Christ? And then the last question I want you to spend some time thinking through is asking yourself, am I primarily a consumer at church? Or am I a contributor to being equipped for ministry? Am I primarily a consumer at church? Or am I playing my part, playing my role, living in the giftings and the purpose that God has given me? Father, again, we are we are grateful for the gospel message that you sent us as Savior to welcome us into your kingdom. You have invited us to be a part of the work that you are doing here on this earth. And God, we just want to be faithful. We want to be a faithful church, a faithful bride of Christ. And I just pray for anyone in this room who is um maybe in that season of life where everything they want to do right now is just run away. Whether it's running away from you, running away from your church, maybe things in life just um are difficult. It feels like everything's fallen down on top of them and all they want to do is run away. God, I pray for grace and strength to stay engaged within your community. God, knowing that it is within your community, your church, that you bring about growth and maturity into our lives. God, I pray that we would be a people that would be humble enough to receive correction and uh truth spoken in love from other people. We will not be too proud to receive correction or rebuke, but rather would we have soft hearts and open minds to receive whatever truth someone might speak into our lives? And then lastly, just want to pray uh uh really just for love to encourage intentionally. God, that you would use us to intentionally speak encouragement and love into the lives of the people around us. Would you use us as your body of Christ to grow your whole body in maturity and into the stature measured by Christ's fullness, God? Again, we're so grateful for the gospel. Um, would you just keep speaking, keep working on our lives? Um, and would you just make it clear what you're calling us to do this morning? We love you, and we pray these things in Jesus' name. Amen.