GROWING IN GRACE / NEIL HOPPER / 3.22.26

We hope you are inspired and fulfilled by this week's message from Pastor Neil Hopper. If you would like to know more about us, visit our website at CLCC.church. 

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:04

Welcome to the Cedar Lake Podcast. We're a community in Cedartown, Georgia learning to follow Jesus with scripture, prayer, love, and generosity. We're glad you're here, and we believe today's message will encourage you. And to learn more about all things Cedar Lake, visit CLCC.

SPEAKER_01 0:26

Amen. Hallelujah. So, uh boy, I've got like so many things in my heart and in my spirit this morning that I think are uh pertinent to where we are and where I believe God wants to take us. You know, um I want to go this morning, probably the first uh scripture. Uh would you uh if you could if you could pull it up, would you pull up Ephesians chapter 4? If you have your Bible, you can turn to Ephesians chapter 4. We're gonna start with verse uh 15. And this is an ongoing uh sermon slash conversation that I've been having with the Lord and with the Holy Spirit over the last few days. I talked some, I talked about some of it on Wednesday night, and I I want to uh I'll I'll start with this verse, uh Ephesians 4 and verse 15, and then we're gonna go back up, and we're gonna go back up to some other verses that I want to to um want you to see. But um let's look at this verse. Father, thank you for your word. Thank you for opening our heart to hear. Lord, I pray for every person in here. There'll be needs that are unspoken, needs that we don't even know about. We just say, Holy Spirit, touch your people today. Open our ear that we might hear. Give us a heart to receive your word in Jesus' name. Amen. So Ephesians chapter 4, and um let's go to 15, she loved. Can you go back up? Did I say 17? If I did, we'll get to that in a minute. Let's go to 15. Here's what it says if you're reading it in a different version. This is King James. Says this, but speaking the truth in love, speaking the truth in love, may grow up, I want you to notice the language here, may grow up into him, that you may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ. So I believe that our goal as a church would be to see people walk in Christian maturity. Amen. So there's verses like this. I don't have these in my notes, but they're in my head and in my spirit, where we talk about things like that. You're no more babes tossed to and fro with every wind and wave of doctrine. He's saying, basically, I want you to grow and mature. And here's how you're gonna know that you're growing and maturing. You're gonna know you're growing and maturing when you look and act like Jesus. When you look and act like Jesus. Because it it look, here's what people don't understand, and it's a it's a it's a fine doctrinal line that we that we try to straddle here. When you say things to people who read the Bible, and I've checked, I went back and looked at the Greek in this this morning, I think they got it right. Listen to what he says here, but speaking the truth in love may grow up what? Into him. Into him. You're gonna grow up into him. In other words, you're gonna be a representation of who he is in the earth. How about verses like this? And I'll have to find this one because it's just in my spirit this morning. Um, as you might be able to see, I've kind of had this conversation uh with myself a bunch of times where these verses are concerned. Because I'm my concern is that we are raising a generation and they're growing up, but they're not growing up into him. They're growing up, in other words, they're getting bigger, they're eating more groceries. Amen. What's wrong with you? Every time I look at you, you in the refrigerator. What you doing? At one time when Kristen and Benjamin were at home. Y'all know how this works, right? You got two teenage boys at home at one point, we're buying four gallons of milk, whole milk a week. That's more fat than any human should consume. Whole milk. Now, just so you're clear, there's nothing better than cold whole milk. But when I became a man, I had to put away childish things. I'm on the skim. Or the almond. I'm on the omen in the skim. Y'all should be so proud. There's nothing better than the sincere milk of whole milk. But what we've done is we've raised a generation, we've raised a generation that all they want is milk light. They want milk, uh, they want skim milk or almond milk, and I'm not against those things. I think they're necessary. But I want you to understand that it is not the desire of the Lord Jesus to make you comfortable. I'll try that over here. Maybe you could help me a little, uh, Chad. It is it is not the desire of Jesus to make you comfortable. I wish I could tell you different. I wish I could say something different, but even if I did, it wouldn't be true. Let me say it another way, and maybe this will make uh good sense to you. I think what we've done in the church is we've wanted everybody to be so comfortable that we've done everything we can to make life easy for you. My wife amening me down here. We we want to make things easy. Like, you know, if if you see you see what I'm saying, like it's it's like we want to make sure that even if there's things available to you, we got to put them on the low shelf so you don't even have to reach for them. Right? You you there's things God has for you, and you might have to reach a little higher and be up on another, get it off the top shelf. And uh, but you know, you got to call the Walmart attendant because they don't want you reaching that high, because God help you, you might sue them. And in the church, what we've done is we've tried to make church easy. You you remember you go to Staples and you do what? You hit the easy button. You hit the easy button. Here's the problem, and this is what you'll understand, hopefully, is that when you're raising kids, you have to let them go through the hard stuff. If you don't take your there comes a time, and it works the same in our spiritual life, there comes a time you have to take your hands off of it and let them struggle. You know who's saying amen the most? People who raise kids. And the ones who struggle are the ones where the parents did most of the stuff for them. And they I'm all about helping your kids, but you all know there comes a time when we had to realize I'm not raising two boys so that they can go out and find some woman to take care of them. Because you a grown man. Now, let's be fair here. Their mama still wants to do for them. Right? That's a mama. That's what you, but even she knows there's times you gotta let them struggle. You gotta let them learn. And if what we've done in Christianity is we've said, here's what we're gonna do. We're gonna give you this little ease, the easy flow. We got to have the easy steps. We've got four easy steps to your healing, and four easy steps to great riches, and four easy, come on, man. I wish it was that easy. I wish it was like that. Here's what I'm here to say to you this morning. We're gonna look at scripture and prove it to you in a minute. The struggle is what makes you who you are. And what we've done with people is we've said, you poor baby. I'm look, when people call me with genuine struggles, I would never be unkind. But in the back of my mind, I might even say, Man, I'm so sorry. That's terrible. I wish you weren't having to go through that. But in the back of my mind, I know God is using this if we let him. God will use the Holy Ghost will use this to teach you and to train you and to show you and to grow you into the person that he wants you to be. Maturity is the goal that you may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ. Now, I'm gonna tell a story I was told a dozen times, maybe hundreds. If you've been here for 30 years, you've been hearing me tell this story, but you'll understand why I want to tell it in a minute. So years ago, a lady, a minister came and ministered in one of our Bible studies. Her name was Beryl Whitten, and Beryl was actually a Christian comedian and a gifted speaker. And she got up. One of her first messages, she preached it in the building next door. I can't forget it. She got up and said, I wrote a poem for you, and I want to read it. She said, The title of the poem is Grow Up. And I want to take a minute. And she said, Grow up, grow up, grow up. Grow up, grow up, grow up. Grow up, grow up, grow up. Grow up. Grow up. Grow up, grow up, grow up. Now, you know what people do with that, and here's why I tell the story. Because you want to poke at somebody, you say to them in a heated argument, you just ought to grow up. Well, I just think you ought to grow up. Well, first of all, that ain't the way to get me to grow up. Now you're inciting anger. Amen. Right? So I think she took a good shot at us, and like a good Cedar Lakeans, we took that left hook and smashed her right back. No, I'm only kidding. She was in her 70s and we wouldn't have done that. But you understand what I'm saying because what happens is when you poke at somebody, they just, you know, and if you're talking to them directly and you just say, you know what? By golly, you ought to just grow up. Your problem is you ought to grow up. You never get people to grow up that way. But what you do is you show them that as you grow in your Christian walk, as you grow as a man, as you grow as a woman, there's gonna be some things that you're gonna face in life and you're gonna hit that easy button, and it ain't gonna work. It's because God has to allow you to push through some things and work through some stuff and use your faith so that you begin to grow in Christ. And then what happens on the other side of that is you say, Wow, I can see Christ being formed in you. I can see Christ being formed in you. I don't I don't know. I heard this story one time. I hope I can tell it correctly. I I I didn't, it's not in my notes or anything, but I heard a story about a man who um who took a moth and he was gonna take it home and he was gonna wait on it. Uh he he it was in the cocoon, it was a caterpillar at that point. And so he was gonna watch it and observe this this caterpillar as it became a moth, a butterfly, you know. And so he would watch it every day, check on it every day, and he noticed one day that at the tip of it the little guy was beginning to push through and and work hard. And he would sit and check it, he would go in and out and check it for hours, see how it was doing. Well, the little caterpillar got to a place where there was no he wasn't making any progress. So this dude decided, he said, here's what I'll do. I'm gonna help this bad boy out. And so he took some little he took some little scissors and he cut, he cut the top of the little cocoon, and sure enough, it came right on out. But what he didn't know is that it wouldn't develop, and here's why. Through the pushing and through the working to get out of this cocoon, what happens is is the it y'all know it's a little grub-looking thing. Well, it grows, it grows wings, and that's how it becomes a flying object from a little caterpillar. But here's what you need to know is that once he what causes him to slim down and causes all of that energy to be forced out to his wings is pushing through the cocoon. And you know what? It could never fly. What happens to your babies and my babies is if we don't let them grow, if we don't let them push through some things, if we don't let them work through some disappointments. But it happens in Christianity too, because what happens is we say, well, I prayed about it and it I just didn't get the answer I was looking for. Listen, just because you didn't get the answer you were looking for doesn't mean that Jesus isn't still Lord. You just didn't get the answer you're looking for. And so you you have to see that there is a there's something bigger that's happening, right? There's something greater that's happening. And if you can ever understand this little principle, I think it changes everything. So, how many of you have been serving the Lord 25 years or more? Even us, we still have room for growth. Now, I'm gonna make it practical, and I promise I can, I'm gonna stick some Bible verses in here and make you feel good in a minute. Not feel good about growing up and and and all those things, because the problem is we've tried to make you feel good. Church has tried to make us feel good. We needed a feel-good gospel. You know, you got people in other countries walking two miles, three miles, four miles, five miles, walking three hours to get to church, and you wouldn't walk outside and drive your nice car over here or to any other church for that matter, because you know what, you know what became the the word, you gotta love this. That's inconvenient to me. And people believe that Jesus came to make you convenient. Now, on the other hand, there's people who sold themselves, listen, sold themselves into slavery so they could reach slaves with the gospel of Christ. Are you willing to go there? Because I don't think many are. There's people who said, I believe in the gospel so much, if I have to, I'll get burned at the stake. See, I don't know that we're ready for that version of the gospel. I want the Holy Ghost to move. I want to see you, uh, I want to see you run through a troop and leap over a wall. I want to see you able to jump over a building in a single bound. I want you to look like Superman and Superwoman. But there ain't but one way to get there, and is we gotta keep growing. We gotta keep moving. We gotta keep, we we gotta keep ourselves where we need to be. And so um look, let me look at a couple things here that I hope will be a blessing to you. For example, I'm gonna grab some scripture here. First of all, um, if we could go back up to verse 13, we'll go to Ephesians 4 13 through 15. Look what it says here. Um to set this up. This is with regard to God giving us ministry gifts. Apostles, prophets, pastors, teachers, evangelists, they're what we call ministry gifts. And these ministry gifts have a goal, and here is uh here is that stated goal. Uh Paul lays it out here in Ephesians chapter 4. Till we all come in the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God unto a perfect man. Listen, he's not saying you are going to be perfect. He says, when we all come together, and and my weakness is your strength, and and what I go through, I learn from you, and you learn from me till we all come. First of all, there has to be unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God. We're always growing in two things that you can bet. We're always growing in grace and in knowledge. We're always growing in grace and in knowledge. He said, We come in the unity of the faith and the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man, unto look the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ. Now look the next verse. We're gonna go where? Measure stature fullness. We're gonna walk in the fullness, the fullness of Christ, that we henceforth, that means moving forward from where we are, henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind and of doctrine. By the slight of men and the cunning craftiness whereby they lie in wait to deceive. Now, let's stay right there for a minute, but he says, You're not supposed to be children. Now, I used to follow this preacher years ago, and I thought this was the funniest thing. He used to tell his congregation, he used to say, If I have to push your mustache back to put a bottle in your mouth, it's time that you grow up. What our problem is, is we're pushing grown men's mushtaches back and still sticking uh a bottle in their mouth because they can't grow up in Christ. And they would get going, boy. They would get going on that, you know. And I I I mean, I thought it was humorous, but it kind of hurt a little, you know. But you understand what I'm saying. He says, What here's here's how you can begin to see the difference in people who are growing up into him, who are not what the Bible says here, that we be no more children. How do you know they're children? They're just tossed to and fro. Every little something other that comes along, they're just tossed to and fro. I I I know I've told this before. Years ago, Lori and I, we decided it was a real good idea, we're gonna take the boys on a cruise. That was back when you could go on carnival cruise and you didn't have to carry a gun with you. Right? Amen. So we get a call. I'm gonna talk about being tossed to and fro. Stay with me. So we get a call, they say, hey, there's a hurricane coming. And we've decided we're gonna leave early to beat the hurricane. And I'm thinking to myself, I don't I don't I don't think that's a good idea. Do y'all know how much this boat costs? Y'all please do not. I kept telling Lori, because I was telling myself, I kept saying, baby, they're not gonna let the boat sink. It costs too much money. Now, us, we ain't that important, but they're not gonna let this boat sink. But we we hit this point on that cruise, Chad, where we would go up. We had us a little window. We didn't have the balcony, that cost it too much money, you see. But we had a little wind, and I could see them waves, and our boat would go up about 40 or 50 feet, and then that bad boy would come down. Christian was sleeping on the top bunk, and he he was in his he was in the room with her mother, with his grandmother, and we was moving, tossing to and fro. He fell, he rolled slap out of the top bunk onto the floor. Boom! I went down to the main part. It's in the middle of the night. You talk about things rocking and rolling, man. Good Lord almighty. So we're but we're being tossed to and fro, right? And I go down literally, they used to, back in the old days, they used to call it the purser's desk. Now it would be like customer service. And I go down there and there are people going, Oh my god, we're gonna die! Oh my god, we're gonna die. I was holding it in, you know, saying, they ain't gonna let nothing happen to this boat. But we were we were being tossed about. But there has to come a time in your in your faith, in your Christian maturity, in your walk when you are not tossed about by every wind and wave. When things come, you just are steady as you can be. The waves come and they crash, and all these things happen, and it don't you it don't even faze you. I'm not a child because children are tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine. By the slight of men and the cunning craftiness whereby they lie in wait to deceive. But speaking the truth in love, here's the next way. Speaking the truth in love, here's where we started in love, may grow up into him in all things which is the head. We're all growing. You know, um, let's go to uh because the real issue for me is how do we figure this out? How do we know? Here's how you're gonna know. You're gonna know you're maturing when there's Christ-likeness in your life. When you begin to be more Christ-like. So uh go to go to Galatians chapter 4 and verse 19. Galatians chapter 4 and verse 19. See, I I still believe that he's still working on me. He's still working on me. Amen. All of us. He's still working on me. I have not arrived. I have not arrived. I told him Wednesday night, the the apostle Paul said in Philippians chapter 3, he said that I may apprehend that for which I was apprehended for. Let me put it in modern terms. The one that arrested me, I've got to go and put an apprehend. The suspect has been apprehended. You've got to apprehend what he's apprehended you for. The reason some people never grow is you don't realize he's apprehended you. You're already apprehended. He's uh, yeah, but this is just choice, and I get to make all the choice. No, no, no. If he's Lord, you don't you don't get to make all the choices, in fact. You gotta apprehend, go after and apprehend that for which you were apprehended for. Say it another way. I press toward the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus. This is something that the church has to come to grips with. I'm telling you, we've made church so easy. We've made church, you look, we try to do everything we can. We want to be comfortable. We want the air to be on. Y'all know I don't like nowhere ain't no air conditioned. That's why I ain't going to hell. If it ain't got air conditioned, I ain't studding it. There's two reasons I ain't going to hell. First of all, there are no exits. Y'all ever been anywhere that ain't no exits? I ain't going where there ain't no exits. I be looking for the dad blame exit if I go into the Texas Roadhouse. I want to know where the exit's at. Something go down in here, I want to know where the exits are. You find yourself in hell, you will not find any exits. You gotta have exits and air condition, especially if you're living in the South. I I tell you what, I love them both. Right? But we've we've tried to make things so comfortable and so convenient, and you know, all of these things. And I get that that's the culture we live in. But we as a body, spiritual maturity doesn't often come with comfort. Say it the best way I know how. I'll say it what I said earlier. Jesus didn't come to make you comfortable. I can show you plenty of references in scripture. He did not come to make you comfortable. I love financial comfort. I love my comfortable space at home. I love comfort in just like everybody else. But if you're looking for comfort when you're following Jesus, you you're gonna have to give that up. You're gonna have to bury that with the rest of the stuff over here somewhere because oftentimes he's gonna call you out above your head out into the water that he called me out upon the water. Great unknown, yeah, but I need comfort. The great unknown, and he tells you, step out of the boat, and the waves are crashing, and the voice of truth says, This is for my glory. Oh, while the waves are crashing, and he says, Step out, come on, step out, come on out, go past your comfort zone. So here's what this is where we want to go. This is Paul talking to the church in Galatia, and he says to them, My little children of whom I travail in birth again, until what? Christ be formed in you. He said, My prayer, I'm travailing in birth. In other words, this is something that don't just happen, it has to be intentional. I'm gonna travail in birth until Christ be formed in you. See what I'm saying? Does that make sense? So the goal is Christ being formed in you. So here's the definition of what we're talking about. Christian maturity is the progressive formation of Christ in the believer, resulting in transformed thinking, character, and behavior. I don't think like I used to think, I don't act like I used to act, and my behavior lines up with his will. Now I'll be the first one to step up and say, I ain't always there. I ain't always there. I ain't always there. But I'm quick to repent. Quick to repent. Because I ain't always right, but my heart is always right. I I don't want to keep a bad heart toward God. I don't want to have, I don't want to have a uh a conscience that's seared. I don't want to be that person when the whole listen, we don't hear enough sermons on this, but the first thing the Holy Ghost will use to begin to help you is your own conscience. If it violates your conscience, don't do it. Just just understand that oftentimes the Holy Spirit will begin to. We have some religious ideas, and there's some things that we, you know, but as a culture, I don't know how biblical they are, they just ain't culturally acceptable. Heard a man of God say this, went to a conference the other week, and he said this. He said, I have prophesied to world leaders around the world, and I know his ministry, and he's telling the truth. And he said, I wasn't the guy who dropped an F-bomb, but he said, I played basketball with a bunch of guys, and I would say curse words. And this is what he said. I love this guy. I followed his ministry. I think he's a pure prophet of God. He said, Jesus showed up in my room one day. He said, It was in the middle of the night, it was about three in the morning. He said, I knew he was in the room, and I woke up, and the only thing the Holy Spirit said, Jesus in his room said, Stop cussing. Now here's the deal. You have to be at least to the point where you can hear that. Or he could he could have said that and he would he would just say, but that ain't the Lord. He don't care if I drop a, you know, a Shiite Muslim every now and again. Y'all don't understand. Right? He does care. He does care. And here's the thing. His conviction don't have to be my same conviction. I may not be dealing with the same thing. But you have to be open to hear it. You do have to be open to hear what he's saying. In case he wants to deal with you about something, you've got to be up. You want revival in your life? Be sensitive to the Holy Spirit. Be sensitive to what he's saying, even in little things, even in small things. Until Christ be formed in you. Colossians 1 28 says, you're going to love this. Colossians chapter 1, verse 28. And we ain't even got started yet. I could go on and on about this because it just means so much to me. It is the first thing I began to learn when I came here on this ground over 30 years ago. Is first thing we didn't have but 25 people here in the church, and you couldn't, because I showed up at my other church, they had 1,200 people. They had somebody to do everything. And what they didn't have people to do, they just paid because they had money. And I came down here at the leading of the Holy Spirit, and we didn't, we could, first of all, we couldn't have paid nobody to do anything. And second of all, we didn't have people to do stuff. So you know what you do when you come to a small church? You do everything. I guess I ought to get there early and make sure to whatever's done. And I can clean toilets. I can preach the sermon and clean the toilets, and if you need me, I'll do worship too. You know how I figured out I could sing in church? We didn't have nobody to sing in church, and we couldn't afford to pay anybody. And I just said, you know what? I watched that guy at my old church. I don't think it's that hard. I don't think it's that hard. No, I ain't gonna tell you it was great. Right? But when you don't have people to do it, what we've done is we've said, well, praise the Lord. You know, somebody ought to go over and work in a nursery. And somebody ought to, man, somebody ought to help Elder Tony cut the grass. And somebody ought to do it. Somebody, we the only somebody's up in this place. Ain't no other somebody's here. And I'll here's how I'll finish, because I got so many more places to go. My little children of whom I travail in birth again until Christ be formed in you. He's forming something in us. But here's here's the way I'll finish. I heard, I heard uh Banning Libashir share this story one time, and he was talking about how we view maturity in the church. If y'all know I love me some Texas Longhorn, if that if I go to Longhorn, Texas Roadhouse or Longhorn, and they don't bring me some water and some bread pretty quickly, I'm gonna be looking like what's going on up in here. Did they not see that I'm here and that I've got money in my pocket? I need some bread and I need some water. Right? Now, can you imagine me coming home on a Wednesday night from church and I walk in and sit down at the table, and I'm wondering where Lori is with my bread and my water? Can y'all see that? Has any of y'all ever went anywhere and you say, get it yourself? When you come to your house, what do you do? Now, if if your wife is like mine, she tries to do a really good job to make sure we have some dinner and you know this and that. Once she retired, she hates to cook, but once she retired, she's done a really good job. But you see what I'm saying? If I come into Longhorn and they ain't bringing me my stuff and serving me, I'm a little upset about that. I'm like, what are they doing? What are they doing? I'm looking at my watch, going, I've been here seven minutes. What are they doing? So, but if I come home and I sit at the table and I'm just thinking, I gotta figure out that my house ain't a restaurant. I didn't come here to get served, I came to serve. We came to serve, and we've made church and everything so, and it came, it's come down now. I don't know if you even know this or not, but it's come down now where everything is. Well, I don't get paid for it. Do you know for 15 years I served this church? I led worship on two occasions. Me and Lori both, for 18 months we led worship twice. For 15 years, you know how much money I got paid? Zilcho gave my tithe every week because I was a tithe paying money. How much money did you make? Zilcho! You think I didn't get fired up about it? They would have a guest speaker in and give him a thousand dollars and I'd be preaching the next week for free. I had to get my attitude in check. And you know what? Sitting here at six years old, it didn't hurt me. Let's just heart he just they didn't give him nothing. I just that's just terrible. Well, Lord, that's the worst thing that could ever happen. I'm I'm thankful that it didn't always stay that way. Because after the 15th year, I was preaching two times a week on Sunday morning, and I got a whopping $150. At the time I was driving an avalanche, gas was $4 a gallon. I was spending all that up, and I wasn't making no money. And I was giving more than that in my tithe, just so we're clear. It didn't kill me. Well, they don't pay me. Well, what if we just didn't pay anybody? What if, you know, look, there's a church right near my house. Uh, Lori's parents go there. Nobody gets paid. Nobody is on staff as full-time. I'm thankful for what the church is able to provide for me and the staff that we have here, Elder Tony and Vaughn and all like that. I'm I'm glad that we can, we we do have something to offer people for their services so forth. But you do realize that in the early days, it was, it was, it's, I'm saying, you gotta have family. At your house, you don't pull up and go, why somebody, Lori, why are you not cutting the grass? I'll be at the table in here, ready to for you to serve me my dinner after you get done with the grass. You you think that's you think that's funny. Do you know in Luke chapter 17 it's exactly what Jesus did? Here, check it out for yourself. I don't have time to show you this, but it is true. Luke chapter 17, the first few verses, here's exactly what Jesus did. You remember the story he says he had a servant that had worked in the field, and when the servant came in, he says to the servant, Go and fix food and serve me, and then you can eat. And I told him Wednesday night, I used to be so offended at that passage, it would offend me. Because I thought, what kind of man? We're talking about Jesus. That's because I have it in my mind that it's supposed to be a certain way. And what did he say? Go back and check it. I ain't making this stuff up. He said, You go work, the servant's been out working in the field all day, he comes in. Servant's got to be tired and hungry. I just want to go get a shower. Maybe you can do dinner tonight. And what does he say? Go fix food and serve me even in your tiredness. Oh, look how you're looking. Yeah. And serve me, and then you can eat. I'm not joking. For a lot of years I read that and said, the nerve. Jesus at the center of it all. Jesus at the center of it all. Till I have to work all day. And then I'm thinking, this ain't so good. It's a little cray cray. I don't I ain't doing all this. I don't get paid to do this. He's still Lord of my life. If he asks me to do more, you know, here's what people don't understand. Sometimes he'll call on you to do more, not less. I know that's a challenge. I know that's a challenge. I know it's a challenge. But understand what I'm talking about. How does maturity happen? Maturity happens, it did for me. Once we had kids, I realized how selfish I was. Anybody ever realize how selfish you was when you had kids? And I realized, well, by the way, for you young parents and people who are about, it won't ever be about you again for about 20 years. It ain't about you anymore. And you know what? That was okay because I loved my babies. I wanted the best for my babies. I wanted my kids to grow up and have things I didn't have. But I also knew there was a time I had to take my hands off of it and let them struggle. I had to let them do some things. So my point is that we have to grow up into him. That you can be a representation of who he is in the earth. Amen. Will you stand up on your feet? I know that's a challenging word, and that's the reason I ask you if you've been serving him for 30 or more years or 25 or 30 years, raise your hand. That's about most of us. And I just have to tell you, I still got a ways to go. I still got a ways to go. I'm still growing. I'm still learning. I'm still finding opportunities to serve. I'm still growing and learning in his grace. You know how I can figure out a quick nugget for you, and I promise I can preach this for days on end. Do you know how I figured out I was growing in grace? When I was able not only to get to receive it, but I was able to give it away. Now all of a sudden, I can receive grace all day long. I see grace because I ain't measuring up, and I've got this and this going on, and I do this sometimes. Now I've got grace. But a bunch of years ago, sitting at a table back here, one of our other pastors challenged us. Said, receive that grace and learn how to give it away. Oh now I'm learning to give grace to some people. I'm learning to give grace. I'm learning to learning to give some love away. I'm learning that God is working in them as well to form Christ in them. And I'm a part of the process because we're a body. This is a family. If you can ever see church in context of a family, you'll stop seeing this as a business. This is not a business transaction. It's not. Yeah. Lord help me, Jesus. I got to shut up. I need to shut up. Amen. I love y'all, but I love you enough to tell you. We all have to grow up. And we still got, well, I'll put it this way. I didn't show up with my, I didn't show up looking more like Jesus than I did yesterday. And that's the goal. To be more Christ-like, you know, every single day. So that you're growing every year. Maybe patience. Maybe giving grace away. It may be learning to love yourself. It may be learning to love somebody else or love him. Lovest thou me, lovest thou me, lovest thou me. Go feed my sheep. Could be anything that God's working with you on. Just open your heart to it. Let him have his way. Amen. Let's pray together. Father, we bless you. We thank you, Lord God, for your goodness, your grace. I believe. I believe that Christ is being formed in us. We declare that. Lord, we open our heart and our spirit to what you want to do. In Jesus' mighty name. And everybody said, Hey, stay with me just one minute. Miss Phyllis and Mr. Donald wave at us. They're going to be getting married here in just a few days. Woo! And you're invited to the wedding April the 11th, 2 o'clock in the afternoon, right here at Cedar Lake Christian Center. And if you want to talk to them, let them know you're going to be here, whatever. I'm so proud for both of them. I just have a ton of respect for both of them, and I love both of them dearly. And they've been a part of us for a long, long time. And I'm just happy. Also, coming up pretty quickly, and my wife will have to help me with this. So the weekend that we have Easter, Easter, we'll have Good Friday night communion. Good Friday service. We'll be in and out fairly quickly. It usually takes about an hour or so. That'll be Good Friday communion. Right? Communion, Good Friday. Saturday we'll have something for the kids right here. And then we'll have resurrection service on Sunday. Invite a friend, and let's enjoy the goodness and presence of God. And let's continue to challenge each other to be all we can be in Christ. Amen? Amen. Amen. You're dismissed in the liberty of the Lord. Be blessed.