Yes, Christian said, I'm very thankful for everybody
who could come out and gather this morning.
I really didn't want my preaching calendar to be messed up.
So I'm glad we can meet.
And it's always good to be together.
We're gonna be in Colossians.
And we're in chapter one still.
And for many years, if you don't know this about me,
I was a lifeguard and swim lesson instructor
for the YMCA for probably five or six years.
And it was a really fun job,
but I'll never forget the test that I had to take
in order to become a lifeguard because it was no joke.
And I remember at the time thinking,
this is gonna be no problem,
because at this point in my life,
I was working out seven days a week.
So I was in the best shape I have ever been in
and will ever be in again because I'm getting old now.
So, but I was in the best shape of my life.
If you were to look at me at the time,
you'd say, man, this guy looks like a lifeguard.
Like he looks like this test is gonna be no problem for him.
That's what I thought too.
So first test, you had to swim 100 meters freestyle,
nonstop.
And I thought, that's a cake walk, all right?
100 meters, that's it.
I've been swimming my whole life.
So I jump right in, I start swimming.
And I've been swimming for about five seconds
when the aquatics director,
who's at the side of the pool, starts screaming to me,
put your face in the water.
And I was like, but then I won't be able to breathe.
So clearly I didn't actually know how to swim
like you were supposed to know how to swim.
But I get through that test,
I get through the next couple of ones.
But then came a test that still scares me to this day.
And it was called the 300.
Okay, and what you had to do was basically
you had to swim 100 meters freestyle,
100 meters breaststroke.
And then you got to pick your last 100 meters.
It could be either freestyle, backstroke,
or butterfly.
And you had to do this nonstop.
And you couldn't hold on to the side of the pool.
You had to do a flip underwater and keep going.
Now, I see a lot of faces that are like,
okay, I don't know if that sounds bad.
I encourage you to try it, okay?
Go to the indoor pool and try to swim 300 meters nonstop.
I thought it was gonna be no problem,
but I nearly died in that water
and barely made it back to the side.
And then I had to go to the bathroom
where I found my breakfast again.
So it was a really hard test, right?
But all of that is to say that even though
I had the look of a lifeguard,
I didn't necessarily have the skills to back up that look.
And if you were to look at me back then,
you would think, oh yeah, he's gonna get a free pass
because he looks like he's a lifeguard,
but that's not how it worked out for me.
And I'm concerned that in the same way,
just because you have the look of a Christian,
just because your life has the appearance
of a Christian life does not mean
that you are necessarily pleasing to God.
In fact, I'm concerned that we have too many people today
who merely have the appearance of the Christian life,
but do not actually have the life of a Christian life
to back that up.
We have a lot of people today
who look the part of a mature Christian,
a lot of people who call themselves Christians,
who come to church,
a lot of people who look like they can handle
just about anything that comes their way.
We've got a lot of people
that you could probably even point to in this room this morning
and say, that person is living a life
that is pleasing to God.
And yet for many of these people,
they lack the walk to back up their talk.
There's a difference between being able to talk
like a Christian and actually live like a Christian.
And in the same way,
my appearance didn't enable me to perform well
on my lifeguard test,
your Christian appearance will not actually enable you
or equip you to live a life that is pleasing to God.
And yet that's exactly what Jesus wants from all of us.
Is it not?
I mean, Paul even says so in these verses here.
He says that he wants us to live lives
that are worthy of the gospel.
He wants us to be found pleasing in the sight of the Lord.
And so what he's trying to get to here in these verses
is that unequipped disciples are unpleasing disciples.
Meaning if all you have is the facade of Christianity,
without actually having the substance of Christianity,
God is not actually pleased with you.
If you're lacking in certain areas,
it means that you're not equipped in those areas spiritually.
And if you're not equipped spiritually,
it means that you're not gonna walk in a manner
where you're not actually pleased with you.
And so what he's trying to do is he's trying to get you
to live a life that is pleasing to God.
You're gonna walk in a manner worthy of the gospel
and you're not gonna be found pleasing
in the sight of the Lord.
And so one of the best things that you can do,
and I have found through studying this passage,
is one of the best things you can do
is you can begin to pray for all the areas
where you're lacking and ask God to equip you
to better be able to walk and step with him.
So here's what I wanna do this morning.
I'm gonna do something a little different.
I wanna give you four prayers
that you should start praying immediately
for yourself and for others, especially for our church.
These are four prayers that you should start praying
immediately if you want to begin to live a life
that is worthy of the gospel
and be found pleasing in the sight of God.
So does that sound good with everybody?
Good?
All right, here's the point where we talk, all right?
So yeah, introductions out,
and now we're gonna get in the sermon.
All right, so everybody, let's let out a sigh of relief
or give me an amen or something.
I just wanna know you're alive.
Everybody?
Yeah?
All right, there we go, man.
I was real concerned there for a second.
The eyes froze everybody's voices.
All right, verse nine.
First prayer is a prayer for spiritual wisdom.
Look at what he 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
in all spiritual wisdom and understanding.
Now I want you to notice this.
Paul's gonna use three words here,
and it's three words that we typically lump together
as being synonymous.
He uses the words knowledge, understanding, and wisdom.
And we tend to lump those together,
but the thing is there are some important differences
between them.
For instance, knowledge is just brute facts.
It's just the content of what you know.
Understanding is the comprehension of those facts,
and then wisdom is the right application of those facts.
And I can show you what this looks like practically.
So here's some knowledge for you if you did not know this.
Studies have shown that when a father is the first
in the family to come to faith in Christ,
there's a, do you know what the percentage chance is
that the rest of the family comes to Christ?
Anybody?
90.
If a father is the first one in the family
to come to Christ, there is a 90% chance
the rest of the family will come to Christ.
If only the mother is a Christian,
the likelihood of the rest of the family coming to Christ
is between 17 and 20%.
Now that's knowledge.
Those are just brute facts, okay?
Understanding then is realizing how essential
the father is, not only for the sake of his own soul,
but for the sake of the souls of his family.
How important and essential the father is
for the spiritual wellbeing of his family.
And then wisdom then is a call, men.
Wisdom here is a call for every single man
to begin to get right with Christ immediately
and to step up and be the spiritual leader of his household
that God has called him to be, because your family
and your family's souls are depending on it.
So that's knowledge and understanding
and wisdom, and Paul is saying that Christians need
all three of these when it comes to God's will
and spiritual matters.
In other words, listen to me, it's not enough
to just know a lot of stuff about God.
I think everybody in here knows a lot of stuff about God.
Do we not?
We can give you facts, we can talk theology,
we can quote the Bible to you.
We have a lot of content, and the Bible is saying here,
the content isn't enough.
You need to understand it and you need to live it out.
If it only ever stays in your head
and it never moves to your hands and your feet,
you've got a problem.
In fact, Paul says he wants us to be filled
with these things.
Notice that word there, filled.
You can circle it, underline it.
It's a really important word, because when Paul says filled
here, he doesn't mean that he wants Christians
simply to possess a lot of this stuff.
Now, obviously he does want that.
But he's not saying, I want you to be filled
so that you can just be full of this stuff.
The word filled here has the idea in Greek
of being controlled by something.
To be so full of something that you're actually
controlled by it.
We still use it in this way today.
Think about if you say a person is filled with rage.
What are we saying?
We're not just saying that they're really angry.
We're saying that they're so angry that they've lost
all sense of common sense and now their anger
is literally controlling them.
It's determining what they say, what they do, how they act.
That's what it means to be filled with something.
It means to be controlled.
The same thing is true if we say a person is filled
with lust.
What are we saying?
We're not just saying they have a lot of lust.
We're saying they've lost the ability
to make good decisions and now that lust
is controlling them in what they do.
And so in the same way Paul's prayer is that Christians
would be so filled with the knowledge and wisdom
and understanding of God's will that they would begin
to be controlled by it.
And so here's a prayer that you should start
praying immediately for yourself and for the church.
Here's what you say.
You say, Lord, fill me with spiritual wisdom
so that it controls my thoughts, attitudes, motivations,
and actions today.
Lord, fill me with spiritual wisdom so that it controls
my thoughts, attitudes, motivations, and actions today.
I think one of the biggest problems we have
in the church today is that we have a lot of people
who are desiring to be wise in the Lord
and live lives that are pleasing to God
and yet they never actually pray for God
to make that a reality.
The Bible tells us in James chapter one
that you can pray and ask God for wisdom
and the Bible says that he will give generously
to those who ask for it.
In fact, as far as I know, it is the only thing
in the Bible that if you pray for it,
you are guaranteed to get it.
If you ask God for wisdom, he will give you wisdom.
The problem is we're not asking for it.
We rarely take time to pray for it.
And so we're going, God, why am I not wise?
Why am I not living a life that is showing
that I have spiritual maturity and wisdom?
It's because we're not praying for it.
We're completely neglecting it.
But let me ask you a question, church.
Can you imagine how different our church would be
and how different the world would be
if we started to pray something like this every single day?
If we no longer let our feelings control how we speak
or act in any given situation.
If we were no longer motivated by selfish ambition,
but instead we are motivated by living
in accordance with God's will.
What if we were no longer acting towards
our own selfish ends, but we were acting
and doing everything for the glory of God alone?
What if we stopped letting our thoughts control us
and instead we took every thought captive
and made it submissive to Christ
and we were controlled by the knowledge of God and His will.
I think the world would look drastically different.
I think the church would look different.
And listen, I guarantee you that your life
would look different.
And so we need to start praying this prayer immediately
because we want to be a people
who are pleasing in the sight of God.
We want to live lives that are worthy of the gospel
and we're not gonna do that if we're not controlled
by the knowledge, understanding and wisdom of God's will.
But I want you to notice what he says next.
It's a prayer for obedient lives.
There in verse 10,
he says, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord,
fully pleasing to Him.
Now here again is interesting
because if I were to take a poll of the room
and I'm tempted to have you raise your hands,
but I'm not gonna do that.
But if I were, and I said,
how many Christians in here want to live a life
that is pleasing to God?
I think we'd see everybody's hands go up, right?
Yes, amen.
I think we'd all raise our hands.
We all want to live a life that is pleasing to God.
But here's where the problem comes in.
I think that we all have different definitions
of what that actually looks like.
I'm convinced that most Christians
are subconsciously thinking or hoping
that God is gonna grade on a curve.
If you remember back to school,
I doubt Lorraine ever did this,
but there were some teachers, okay?
Yeah, no, she's saying, no, she never did this, all right?
This doesn't apply to her.
But there were some teachers
where if every student did poorly enough,
what would they do?
They would grade on a curve.
So now even those who did really bad have a passing grade.
What did the teacher do?
The teacher lowered the standard.
And they said, okay, since everybody's doing bad,
the standard's now gonna be lowered,
so everybody is looking pretty good now,
according to the state.
Well, I think a lot of Christians
think that way about God.
There are many Christians who are looking around going,
hey, listen, God, if I'm just judging myself here,
everybody's doing pretty badly down here, okay?
Like with a few exceptions or a couple of exceptional people,
but pretty much everybody's doing bad.
So God's probably gonna lower the standard, right?
That's not how it works.
God doesn't change his standard based on human performance.
So we understand that church.
God's not gonna lower his standard
because most people on earth are doing poorly.
In fact, the Bible says in Matthew chapter five,
Jesus tells us that we must be perfect
as our heavenly father is perfect.
That is God's standard, and God's not changing that standard.
Now, you can never reach that standard on your own.
It is only by being justified,
declared right on the side of God,
that you can actually obtain the perfection of Christ
that he earned for us through his life.
But listen to me, God's standard does not change.
He does not grade on a curve.
And so what you need to understand
is that partial obedience
will never be fully pleasing to God.
I know a lot of us here this morning are thinking,
I'm probably good in the eyes of God, right?
I'm probably good in the eyes of God.
If I'm looking around, I'm doing better than most people.
I come to church when I can.
I try to be nice to others.
I try not to cuss or do horrible things.
I try to help out and be a friendly person.
So I'm pretty sure God is pleased with me.
And I wanna suggest to you this morning
that maybe the reason that you think
God is pleased with your life
is because there's actually too much distance
between you and Jesus.
There's this artist that I like.
And he does this thing where sometimes
he will try to paint a famous painting from memory
without any reference.
And it's really cool.
And so he posted a video recently
where he posted a video of him painting
the Mona Lisa from memory.
And when he got done with it, I was looking at it
and I was like, yeah, that's the Mona Lisa.
If anybody was going to walk by, they would see that
and they'd clearly go, yeah, that's absolutely
the Mona Lisa.
In fact, when I was looking at it,
I couldn't even really tell you what was wrong.
I could tell something was off,
but I couldn't even pinpoint it.
And so at the end of the video,
what he did is he got a picture of the actual Mona Lisa
and he put it next to the one he painted.
And then I was like, buddy.
Like, I don't even know that I could say
the first one's the Mona Lisa anymore.
But once you put the real thing next to his imitation,
you could see all the ways that his fell short.
It was very clear where all the flaws were
and where all the areas where he messed up.
And so I tell you that to tell you
that maybe the reason that you think your life is so good
in the eyes of God is because you're spending a lot of time
looking at just your life
and you don't really want to hold it up
next to the life of Jesus.
Because let me ask you, what happens
when you put the life of Jesus next to your life?
Does your life look so good anymore?
No.
When you do that, when you put the life of Jesus
next to yours, all of a sudden,
all of your flaws are very obvious.
All of the ways you fall short, they are very obvious.
And all the ways that you need God's help,
they are very obvious.
In fact, I want to tell you one of the most humbling things
you can do, open up your Bibles
and go read one of the Gospels,
Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John
and just read any story about Jesus.
And when you do that, here's what I want you to do.
Read any story about Jesus and ask yourself,
how would I have responded in this situation?
What would I have said if I were Jesus in this situation?
What would I have done?
And if you're honest in this exercise,
you're gonna see just how different you are from Jesus.
I mean, there are a lot of times
where I would have lost my patience on the Pharisees,
the Sadducees, and Peter, bless his heart,
and Peter, I would have lost my patience.
And yet you see Jesus, and he is just so loving
and kind and patient and merciful and gracious.
And when I see that, I go, God, that is not what I am.
I am so far from your standard.
I'm so far from where you need me to be.
But the point is this church,
the further away we are from Jesus,
the more likely we are going to be
to think we're doing okay.
But the closer you are to Jesus,
the more likely you are to realize
how much you need God's help.
In fact, that is true of all the best Christians I know.
There's some Christians in my life,
and I look up to them, they are mentors to me,
I respect them, and I would say they are so close to God.
But if you were to ask any one of them,
they would tell you, I love the Lord, but man,
I'm just a sinner saved by grace.
I'm just a sinner in desperate need of God's grace daily.
And yet it's these other Christians,
the ones that I know are not walking with the Lord daily.
The ones that I know are entertaining sin in their lives.
They're the ones who tell me, Pastor, I'm good.
God's happy with me.
It's because there's too much distance
between us and Jesus.
If we're not close to Him,
we're gonna be tempted to think
God's pretty pleased with what we're doing.
And so here's the prayer
that I want you to start praying immediately.
You say, Lord, draw me closer to Jesus
so that my flaws are exposed
and I may walk more in step with Him.
Pray this prayer every day, Lord, draw me closer to Jesus
so that my flaws are exposed
and I may walk more in step with Him.
In other words, church,
we do not want to settle for partial obedience anymore.
We don't wanna just keep patting ourselves on the back
because we're mostly obedient
because being mostly obedient, being partially obedient,
it will never be fully pleasing to God.
And we need Jesus to expose our sins
because here's something I know about everybody in here.
Most of us are pretty blind to our flaws most of the time.
Are we not?
I mean, we might think you're doing great
and then someone comes right alongside of you
and they go, hey, have you noticed
you've got a problem with patience?
You're like, no, I did not notice that.
I can't believe anybody did.
We're pretty blind to our flaws most of the time, right?
We need someone to come and expose that
and the best person to expose that would be Jesus.
And so your prayer every day should be,
Lord, I don't want sin in my life.
I want it to be exposed so that I can repent of that sin
and so that I can start living a life
that is more pleasing to you.
So draw me closer to Jesus so that I can see those flaws,
repent of them and then keep me close
so that I can walk more in step with Jesus every day.
Listen, I would love it if you would start praying this
for other Christians too.
Because here's another tendency we have in the church today
is we have a tendency to get frustrated more than we pray.
And so what we'll do is we'll see Christians
who are struggling in sin
or we'll see Christians who are getting lax in their walk
and we go, what is wrong with them?
Like, I thought they were so on fire for the Lord
for a time and they were coming to church
and I saw them here on Sunday morning
and they were getting active
and they were doing all these things
and now I don't know the last time I've seen them.
They're not reading their Bible, they're not praying.
Like they're drifting from God
and we have a tendency to get frustrated then.
But what if instead of getting frustrated,
we started praying for them?
And we started saying, Lord, draw them back to you.
Show them how much they need you in their lives
on a daily basis, expose their sins
and then keep them close to you
so that they will live a life that is pleasing to you.
What would the change look like, church,
if we stopped getting frustrated
and actually got down on our knees
and started praying for our brothers and sisters in Christ?
Do you think there'd be a noticeable difference
in the church?
I do.
And so I think you should start praying this prayer immediately
and then Paul says we should pray for a fruitful ministry.
Look at verse 10.
In the last part of verse 10,
he says, bearing fruit in every good work
and increasing in the knowledge of God.
Now, I don't know if you've ever worked
on a job site with someone.
Could be an actual job site.
Greg Berryhill's done this a lot.
Or if you're working on a project with someone
or a group project or any environment
where you have to work with other people.
But if you've done this,
you'll notice there are typically
about three kinds of people, maybe more,
but here are my general three categories.
You've got your leaders and they plan everything.
They oversee the project, they help out.
Then you've got your laborers.
And as you can imagine,
they're the ones who do the majority of the work
and heavy lifting.
And then you got the people that I call the lookers.
Why do you call them the lookers, pastor?
I'm glad you asked.
It's because these people always look
like they're busy with something,
but they never actually do a thing.
You know people like this?
Yeah, don't look around.
But okay, you've met a couple of these.
No matter what, they always have their hand on something.
They always are running around looking busy
and looking like they're working.
But then if you're close to it,
you're like, hold on a second, he didn't do a thing.
He was just standing there the whole time.
This also applies to mission trips.
Anybody who's been on a mission trip knows this.
You're going and you're doing a bunch of work.
And then there's a group of people who never do any work,
but the camera comes out and all of a sudden,
they're carrying two by fours and a drill,
has no bid in it, but they've got the drill in there.
And they're like, we're doing this for Jesus.
And again, there's no bid, but it's for Jesus.
And they're in every single picture.
So that's the lookers.
My point is there's a big difference
between being busy and looking busy and being productive.
There's a big difference.
And my concern for Christians today
is that a lot of us are really good at looking busy
and being busy, but not a lot of us are very productive.
I think we've got a lot of Martha's and not a lot of Mary's.
You remember the story of Mary and Martha?
That's one of my favorite in the Bible.
Jesus comes to the house of the two sisters
and Martha's like, I know what I'm gonna do.
I'm gonna start serving.
I'm gonna start doing everything.
I'm gonna start cooking and cleaning and tidying up
and getting everything ready.
And the Bible even says she distracted herself,
and she's busy herself with much serving.
And so she's doing all this, and the problem is what?
Her sister is not helping her.
And she's like, well, this isn't fair.
I'm doing all this work.
And she even goes to Jesus.
She's like, hey, I don't know if you've noticed this.
I've done everything.
She hasn't done a thing.
But where was Mary?
She was sitting at the feet of Jesus.
And Jesus tells Martha, I'm not gonna scold her
because Mary has chosen the better portion.
She's chosen the good portion.
And I think a lot of people today,
you know, look at our church,
and something that's true about our church
is pretty much everyone in here
is wearing 10 different hats.
And that's great.
I appreciate that.
I'm wearing about 15 or so myself.
So I love you and I appreciate you doing that.
But one of the problems is people get so busy
that they end up burning out.
And I think one of the reasons
that so many people burn out in church
is because we've got a lot of people today
who are much more eager and willing to serve Jesus
than they are to simply sit with Jesus.
And if you never take the time to sit with Jesus
and all you ever do is serve Jesus,
you're gonna end up burning out real quick.
Because it's no longer gonna be about serving a living savior.
It's gonna be about making sure you do
as much as you possibly can.
And you're gonna end up doing it
in your own strength and power,
which is absolutely pointless.
Because we can do nothing in our own power.
The Bible tells us that we can either plant a seed
or we can water a plant.
But who is it that gives the growth, church?
God, that's an easy answer.
You could have said Jesus is the Sunday school answer.
Who gives the growth, church?
Jesus, God, okay.
Again, not a lot of response there.
We'll chalk it up to cold weather, but it'll be all right.
God is the one who gives the growth.
God is the one who causes something to bear fruit.
The Bible says unless the Lord builds the house,
those who labor do so in vain.
And so if you want your life in ministry to be fruitful,
you need to remember who it is
that actually brings forth the fruit in the first place.
And so here's the prayer.
You should start praying immediately.
Lord, remind me to sit with you before I serve you.
So that I will depend on you for a fruitful life in ministry.
Lord, remind me to sit with you before I serve you
so that I will depend on you for a fruitful life in ministry.
Church, we need to be praying this for each other
on a daily basis.
We need to be praying this for our church on a daily basis
because I am praying that the Lord will continue
to produce and bear much fruit in this church.
We want to have a fruitful ministry here at George's Creek.
And I want to just take this opportunity to remind you
that we have seen a lot of fruit over the past five years.
Have we not, church?
We've seen some wonderful blessings over the past five years.
We've seen tons of fruit here in this church.
So let me remind you,
I am not the one who is responsible for the fruit
that we have seen in this church.
I am not the one who made this church grow.
I am not the one who made this church effective.
I am not the one who made this church produce fruit.
It was all God and God alone.
Are we all clear on that?
It was not Alex, it was God.
To God alone belongs the glory.
And we want to continue to see this fruit.
And so we need to pray that we would be a people
who are not just busy, but bountiful,
making sure that we never disconnect our service to God.
And we need to be a people who are not just busy,
but are busy with our service to the Lord
from our relationship with the Lord.
Because if you start removing Jesus from that relationship,
you're just going to turn into a bunch of Pharisees.
And this church will die out quickly.
We need to be like Mary and not like Martha.
So notice this final thing that Paul says
we should be praying for.
And it is joyful perseverance in verses 11 through 12.
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.
Now as Paul's talking about perseverance here
and having joy, he's alluding to the fact
that the Christian life is not a sprint.
It is a marathon and it is grueling.
You don't just come to faith
and then you're immediately perfected and that's it.
You just sit around and wait.
You come to faith in Christ, God saves you,
and then he puts you on this journey
of getting to walk with Christ throughout all of your life
and having the Holy Spirit slowly make you more and more
like Christ.
And Paul is saying God wants you to enjoy that journey.
I think I've told you all before
that I am absolutely no fun to hike with whatsoever.
And I don't think I can overstate that enough.
I mean, you don't want me on a hike with you, okay?
Because if you tell me we're gonna go hike to a waterfall,
I'm gonna get us to that waterfall, okay?
And we're gonna be going like left, right, left, right,
drill sergeant type stuff out there.
Let's get going and get to that waterfall.
Anna and Judah are not like that, however.
And that's because they actually know how to hike.
So that's not on them, but they move at a snail's pace
or a little slower than a snail,
but they move there about at a snail's pace.
Oh, I got to look there, okay?
But here's what they do.
When they're hiking, they're gonna stop and look
at every snail, every tree, every branch, every leaf,
every rock, every body of water,
every little critter they can find.
They're gonna be stopping constantly.
And the whole point is, oh, we'll get to the waterfall
when we get there.
It's not moving.
It's still gonna be there by the time we get there.
And I'm like, well, then what's the point of even going?
But anyways, the whole point is that the purpose of hiking
is not to get to the destination.
The whole point of hiking is to enjoy the journey
to that destination.
And I think if we're not careful,
we can make this same mistake
when it comes to our spiritual lives.
We can get so called up in reaching that end goal
of perfection that we fail to appreciate
that the journey the Lord has us on right now.
But I want you to understand something this morning.
The Lord actually does care about that journey.
And I can prove it to you too.
Because as I said, God is all powerful, yes?
So when he saved you, he could have just made you perfect
at that time, yes?
He could have removed all the sin,
made it to where you were never tempted again,
made it to where you never walked in disobedience again.
He could have said they're perfect right now,
but he didn't do that.
Instead, he chose to allow you to start on this journey
of walking with Christ and slowly learn obedience,
slowly learn to turn away from sin more and more,
slowly learn to enjoy the Lord more and more and more.
And this journey just gets sweeter the longer you're on it.
Does it not?
I mean, the more you walk with the Lord,
the sweeter that walk gets.
And so I need you to understand
that God actually does care about that journey.
God doesn't want you to view your spiritual growth
like I view hiking.
He doesn't want you to just white knuckle your way
to perfection.
He wants you to enjoy the journey of growing in him
and walking with him.
And it's beautiful.
I mean, there are gonna be some bumps along the road,
but few things are more satisfying
than embracing that journey and seeing the progress
and change that God brings about in your life.
And I love witnessing this journey.
One of my favorite examples is Kaylee.
I got her permission before service to mention her.
Kaylee is a horrible no-goods.
No, can you imagine?
No, I love seeing what the Lord has done in Kaylee's life.
And she posted recently on Facebook
and it really just, it made me so proud
as her pastor is one of my proudest moments
because she said in this post
that before she came to George's Creek,
she had never read a full chapter of the Bible
before she came to this church.
But she said last year by God's grace,
she read through the entire Bible for the very first time,
every single word of the Bible and she read through it.
And now, listen, again,
Kaylee would be the first one to tell you this.
If you were in my gospel group,
she would be the one to tell you this, okay?
Kaylee's not perfect.
She is far from perfect.
She still has her problems and her difficulties
and her challenges that she's working through,
but you can look at where she was
and where God has brought her
and see the change that he has brought about in her life
in such a short amount of time.
And she even said in her post
that she was eternally grateful to God
for giving her a desire, not obligation,
a desire to be closer to him every day.
And she said, I'm finally learning to hear his voice
and to recognize it above all the noise.
And church, that's what God does.
That's what God can do.
He can take any person on earth,
he can save them and then he can put them
on a spiritual journey to transform their life.
And notice what she did there.
She didn't focus on where she wasn't,
she focused on where she had been.
I just want to tell you this morning,
if you will stop focusing solely on the destination
and learn to appreciate the change
and how far God has brought you,
you're gonna start enjoying walking with him
a whole lot more.
And so here's what I want you to pray.
This prayer you should pray immediately.
Lord, help me to have joy in my walk with Christ
and give thanks for becoming more like Christ.
Lord, help me to have joy in my walk with Christ
and give thanks for becoming more like Christ.
In other words, church,
I want you to start learning to celebrate small victories.
I want you to learn to celebrate the progress
and not just the perfection.
And so if you're here this morning, listen to me,
if you were praying more now than you were a year ago,
then that has changed, that has progressed
and you should take time to praise God
because he's the one who made that a reality in your life.
If you're studying the Bible more than you were a year ago,
then praise God because that's progress.
And that's something that God has done in your life.
If you're learning more, growing more, trusting more,
if you're walking with God more closely
than you were a year ago,
then you need to take time to praise God for that change
and for that progress that he's brought about in your life.
So don't get so focused on the destination
that you fail to appreciate the journey
and what God is doing all around you.
And I'm just gonna tell you this joy,
it doesn't come naturally to us,
which is why Paul says we need to be praying for this joy.
God, give me joy in my walk with Christ
so that I'll learn to appreciate it
and give thanks for what you're doing in my life.
And so if you want to live lives that are pleasing to God
and be found worthy in his sight,
then we need to be equipped to live those kind of lives,
do we not?
And one of the best ways that you can be equipped
for that kind of life is to start praying for it
and praying for all the areas where you were lacking
and needing help.
One of the best things you can do
for your spiritual life here in 2025,
the sermon insert that you normally throw away
on your way out the door, do me a favor, keep that one, okay?
I want you to keep that one, put it on your fridge,
keep it in your Bible, add it to your daily prayer list
and start praying these prayers every single day
for yourself and for this church,
because only through this will God begin
to make us live lives that are worthy
of the gospel of Christ and pleasing in his sight.
And that's exactly what we want.
Is it not church?
Amen.
All right, let's pray.