Growing in a Deeper Knowledge of Him

The Christian in Three Stages of Developmental Maturity

Please turn in your Bibles to the first epistle of John. I'm going to read the first 14 verses of Chapter 2. This is God's holy and infallible Word. My little children, these things write I unto you that ye sin not.

And if any man sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous, and He is the propitiation for our sins, and not for ours only, but also for the sins of the whole world. And hereby, we do know that we know Him if we keep His commandments.

He that saith, I know him, and keepeth not his commandments, is a liar, and the truth is not in him. But whoso keepeth his word in him, verily, is the love of God perfected. Hereby know we that we are in him.

He that saith, he abideth in him, ought himself also so to walk, even as he walked. Brethren, I write no new commandment unto you, but an old commandment which you have had from the beginning. The old commandment is the word which you have heard from the beginning.

Again, a new commandment I write unto you, which thing is true in him and in you, because the darkness is past, and the true light now shines. He that says he is in the light, and hates his brother, is in darkness even until now.

He that loves his brother abides in the light, and there is no occasion of stumbling in him. But he that hateth his brother is in darkness, and walketh in darkness, and knoweth not whither he goeth, because the darkness hath blinded his eyes.

Now our text for consideration this morning. I write unto you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you for his name's sake. I write unto you, fathers, because you have known him who is from the beginning.

I write unto you, young men, because you have overcome the wicked one. I write unto you, little children, because you have known the father. I have written unto you, fathers, because you have known him that is from the beginning.

I have written unto you, young men, because you are strong, and the word of God abideth in you, and you have overcome the wicked one. May the Lord be pleased with the study of his word, and let's ask the prayer of blessing upon it now.

O Lord, we pray in the power of the Holy Spirit that you would supply both light and heat, that you would illumine our understanding and also set our hearts ablaze, that we would have greater zeal and affection and passion for you, Christ, that we'd have a greater sense of duty and delight to accomplish your will, and O Lord, that you would send a great mission ahead of us, good works that we might walk in, that our lives would be rich and fulfilling as we accomplish your will, and we ask all this in Jesus' name.

Amen. Please be seated. About 24 years ago, I was about to preach one of my first sermons, and I went to my mentor, and I said, I'm thinking about preaching 1 John 2, 12 through 14, and he recommended I not do that because it's a little bit tricky.

Now, I think because all these years have passed, I'm getting older, I think I can now preach 1 John 2, verses 12 through 14. Today, to give you an overview of really what the whole message is, a thesis statement, kind of a purpose of the sermon, in a very simple way is this, the Christian in three stages of developmental maturity.

That's really all I'm going to be talking about today, the Christian in three stages of developmental maturity. Now, you can imagine from the text, the first one is fathers. In the Christian faith, there are fathers, and we could add this is not specific to the male sex, but we have to confess and acknowledge the scriptures are patriarchal.

So we talk about mature fathers, we understand mature women, and that same heading, but we fear not the use of the male language. This is a patriarchal book, and we rejoice that it is. The second is young men.

Young men. So there's fathers, and this goes in descending order. Fathers, young men, and children. Fathers, young men, and children. The Christian life in three stages. Of course, the goal for all of us is to be considered fathers.

Let's consider the language to kind of have a better idea of what John is getting at. We have to acknowledge as you're reading along, this is an awkward section in terms of flow. It doesn't perfectly go with the cadence of that which has gone before it, but it is by no means detached from it or disassociated with it.

But it seems that John comes to a pause here. He's been admonishing us to keep the commandments of God, to walk in the light as he is in the light, to love our brother in a way that is consistent with which the love that Christ has loved us.

But now it seems to be that he wants to encourage the body. So today, I want every one of you to derive encouragement, and I want you to relax your shoulders a little bit because I've been coming at you with all the things you should do, and today I'm going to do that a little bit, but more an air of encouragement.

You have a standing in Christ. You have the forgiveness of sins. You have a station in Christ. You have an estate in Christ, and all of us should rejoice in that. All of us should say, Amen. Thank you, Lord, for putting me in the body of Christ, wherever I am on the level of developmental maturity.

Well, let's break down the language here a bit. First, look at verse 12. It says, I write unto you. John is saying, I am writing this epistle to give you direction. Now, sometimes when we hear scriptures, we are reading the scripture or listening to a sermon or doing our own devotions, we think maybe it doesn't perfectly apply to us in our situation.

Here, John is going to encapsulate the whole of the Christian church in the first usage of little children, and then he's going to talk to everyone, whether they be fathers, young men, or children. John seems to be emphasizing here the directives that he gives to each according to their station.

You need to find out today, locate yourself with some self-diagnosis. Where am I? Am I a young child in the faith? Am I a young man in the faith, or am I a father in the faith? You and I need to look at our own spiritual maturity, whether we are those Christians who are little children, in that diminutive sense, the little ones, the infants, or are we fathers or young men?

Now, when we think about knowing Jesus as the Messiah and the divine Logos, which has been introduced in chapter one, we also need to think about our fellowship with the broader church. John is saying, essentially, if you are united to Christ, you are united to Christ himself, but also to me, the apostle.

You're also united to the broader and larger church of Christ, and all of these things are sources of joy and comfort to us when we consider who we are in Christ, and this would follow some of the teaching that Mark gave in Ephesians about our identity in Christ.

Now, if we walk in the light, it means we have no fellowship with darkness. If we have the blood of Jesus cleansing us from all of our sin, if we are those who confess our sins and are waging war against the flesh, we should rejoice today because in the power of the Holy Spirit, he calls you to keep his commandments.

You operate from a place of strength. You operate from a place of security to keep his word, to love the brethren as Christ has loved us. And of course, this drumbeat that's been happening in our section up till now, live as the children of light walk in his light.

Now, let's look at our text beginning at verse 12 in the use of little children. One of the reasons I have argued in the past that we need the preaching of the word is the word for little children in verse 12, and the word for little children in verse 13 are different words.

But in our text, they are translated simply little children. We've already covered this first part before, and it's a very useful to John phrase, little children. It's the word technia and it's the deeply loved ones.

So even the fathers in this case are considered the deeply loved ones. The darlings of the apostle, the Christian converts, every one of us in this room, even old guys like me are considered by John to be little children.

This usage, of course, encompasses all believers and is frequently used by John to communicate his love and affection for the saints. It is a kindred address from teachers to their disciples. So John, in this almost poetic way, says, I'm writing to you.

I'm writing unto you. I have written unto you, little children, because I love you, I want you to know who you are in Christ and what you are capable of and what you are aspiring to be. It's very encouraging to me to think of the apostle saying to all of the church, you are the beloved ones.

You are my darlings. I care so much for you. It helps me to receive some of the hardness of his teaching. When they get to the idea, which is so basic, but how often do we consider it a trifle to say we're forgiven of our sins?

Do you realize the burden that has been lifted off of you? You are wretched beyond belief. The sins that you harbored in your heart, that you have performed in secret, which would startle us as the people of God.

God has seen all of those sins and he has laid them upon the Lord Jesus Christ and he has cleansed you from all of them. Oh, today to take heart and to rejoice and to give thanks and to be glad that all of my sin has been paid for by Jesus Christ.

I can face anything because Christ has forgiven me my sins. Have you experienced, have you shared this heart of gratitude and thanksgiving to God recently for the forgiveness that is in Christ alone? When Mark declared the absolution, this declaration of pardon, did your heart rejoice within you or was it coming to you now, liturgy?

Let's not miss the opportunities that are presented to us both in the liturgy and this text today. Oh, people of God, take heart. Rejoice. Your sins are forgiven. You've been washed. You're clean in Christ.

And now from this place, go out and make some noise for him. Go out and live the Christian life. Go out and be joyful and thankful. Go out and conquer and take some ground for him. The next thing I'd like us to consider and we think about having a Christo centric kind of doctrine, which I hope our church has characterized our theology.

Sometimes when we think about the forgiveness of sins, we merely think about it for the benefits that are conferred to us. It's certainly appropriate for us to be rejoicing that our sins are forgiven, but there's an important phrase here and it says, for his namesake, our sins have been sent away reminiscent of the scapegoat.

Our sins have been carried as far as the East is from the West. Our sins have been laid upon Christ and they are no more as it concerns us because he has faithfully discharged our sin. He's released us from it.

But all this happens really in the first case. For the glory of Christ, for his namesake, it's on account of Christ because because of Christ. It's through Christ. Christ is the author of this action.

He's also the instrument of it. He is the efficient cause of our sins being forgiven. It is by his love, service, and intervention that our sins have been forgiven. He forgives us not only to clean us, but that his name might get glory.

The angels of heaven rejoice and give glory to Christ in the repentance of a sinner because he does it. It's not the sinner's ability that's so spectacular. It's the name above all names. It's the name of Christ.

Christ saves and forgives, and this flows out of his character. It's for his fame. It's for his reputation. He doesn't want to have a harlot wife. He wants a spotless bride, so he makes her clean. And according to Hebrew notions, a name is inseparable for the person to whom it belongs.

It is something of his essence. And the name of Christ accounts for his rank, his authority, his interests, his pleasures, his commands, his excellencies, his deeds. Think of the sacraments of baptism and the Lord's Supper.

In these we are bound to the name of Jesus Christ. We publicly declare our union with Christ and we pay homage to his dignity and his authority, and he gets all the glory. When sinners are saved, they receive many benefits, but the glory belongs to the name of Jesus Christ alone.

And that's where we are. Every Christian, regardless of their development, whether they be the newest Christian or the most seasoned saint, your sins have been forgiven for the glory, the pleasure of Christ, the reputation and the fame of his name.

What makes me think of your name? When they say Limpki, what's the world going to say about the Limpkis? Well, I think they're going to say, as for me and my house, we serve the Lord. I hope the Breno name will mean something in the future.

There'll be a legacy of faith. The Brenos are the people of God. They walk in his ways. The Stevens, the Breno 3 .0s, the 2 .0s, whatever the designations are. But that name is going to mean something.

The Mahars, the Carleys, the Clarks, the Fullers, the Zenos, the Santa Cruzes, the Revises. That name is now going to be associated through baptism, through faith, through the Lord Jesus Christ, through the Lord's Supper, for their vibrant membership in the local church and the church universal.

Those names mean something because of their connection and union with Christ. So today, I urge you to continue and to amplify that your name is going to be connected to the great name, that your name will exist and function and thrive for his name's sake and glory, and your family will be swept up in that glory and honor.

So the Clarks, what will that mean in a generation? What will it mean for the Limpkis, the Mahars? Will it mean everything in the world if you're following and serving Christ? Well, there's another thing to consider here.

The next designation is the top of the maturity chain of developmental maturity is fathers. I write into you fathers because you have known him who is from the beginning. A father is one who imparts life.

He's a nourisher. He's a protector. He's an upholder. Of course, this immediately causes us to reflect upon the person and character of the first person of the Trinity, God the Father. The fathers of families and churches and society are defenders of the faith.

They uphold the truth. They nourish their families and the body by applying the word to those under their charge. Everyone here should aspire to this level of responsibility and commitment. The fathers, I don't know if you know this, but the fathers are all about the future.

Everything they do really is future oriented. They build for the future and they leave both inheritances and a godly heritage. And if they're successful, their children will stand on their shoulders and they will take the kingdom even further.

They will take greater ground than their fathers. These are the elders of the church and society. They're the leaders. Through rank and experience, these saints have attained a degree of sanctification that enables them to lead conquests.

They are God's field generals. And the reason I'm invoking this military language and the connection to the young men, you'll make it'll make more sense a little bit then. They preside over the taking of ground for Christ and his kingdom.

These are believers of a high level of maturity and wisdom. So are you a father of the faith? I was thinking about this illustration. I think obviously I think I'll make a little bit more sense as we continue through the next two stages.

When I was first buried, I had to mow the yard myself. And now I never mow the yard really. We need to mow our yard though, by the way, boys. There's something that's happened. If I needed to do a yard cleanup, if I'd been gone for a week or several days and it'd been raining like it has, I would come home and I would have to pull the weeds and do all the edging and mow all of the grass.

But now I can put three or four bodies on the yard and the yard can be whipped into shape really fast. It's very surprising. Particularly Jameson gets out there and gets excited. He'll just start knocking it all out.

You see, there's something about fathers. They impart life and mothers as well. Right in front of us, these babies, they're multipliers. The mature among us multiply. They don't subtract. They are multipliers.

The kids will look in the cupboard and they'll say, we need to order a pizza. There's no food in the house. And then mom will come in and make a four course meal and dessert from strange ingredients that are in the cupboard and in the freezer.

This is the kind of thing that mature people do. Well, more on that in just a minute. The fathers are described as possessing something that is very incredible. It says, I write into you fathers because you have known him.

That is from the beginning. You know, the ancient of days, you know, Christ, you know, the father, you know, the son, you know, the Holy Spirit. And I was thinking about this. It's like a young first year seminary student or Bible college student who knows everything, but nothing by experience.

The spiritual fathers of the church can take the attributes of God and they can say that they have tangible experiential evidence of the reality of God and his existence and his goodness and his mercy and grace.

Their lives testify to the reality of God. They know him intimately through personal experience. The mature Christian knows, understands and perceives who God is. The glory that is due that most glorious name.

They know and understand something of the sum of all of his perfections. And this goes beyond which we spend so much time on here, an intellectual ascent. He speaks of a knowledge properly, but also of a knowledge experientially.

Of course, knowing is used of the act of marriage and it refers to the intimacy that is shared between a husband and a wife. And the fathers of the faith, the mothers, the mature in Christ, they know God deeply and intimately.

He's not an idea. He's a living person. And the fathers know the father, they know the son and they know the Holy Spirit. They understand the messianic dignity of Christ, his divinity, his unending and consummate kindness and love toward us.

They understand of all the benefits that have redounded back to us because of the saving work of Christ. And they can plumb the depths of it. They know it intellectually, but they know it in their hearts, it's in their bones, it's in their bowels.

They know what it means to be united to Christ and to have fellowship with him. It's important also to see that they know him. Who is from the beginning, they are authorities themselves, they are rulers themselves.

These fathers of the faith know his kingly and magisterial rule. In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. They recognize that Christ has the first place. He has the dominion.

He has the principalities. He makes the rules. The whole of creation is under his dominion. And by rank, title and name, he is the king. He is the Lord. So fathers themselves, leaders are the humblest and most submissive to the will of God.

Sometimes we approve in this era of lack of masculinity. We like brashness and boldness, but we need to esteem humility and strength, real strength, humble, submissive to God. What takes us now, that's the father.

It takes us now to the young men in the middle of verse 13. Take a look at that. He says, I write to you, young men. Now, in the depth of meaning of this word, I don't think there's much more to say than young men.

And if we lived in Scotland, these would be the lads, not the little boys, but the buddies at the pub, the guys who play rugby, the soldiers. These are the ones who overcome. And that second word, that second descriptor, young men, he writes to them and encourages them because they have overcome.

Young men are conquerors. That's actually what overcome is meaning here. They are victorious. They prevail. They subdue. They carry off the victory. I should point out to you that, depending on where you land this, the little children designation probably extends to seven years old.

And the young man, the full adulthood, not mature adulthood, but full adulthood in the scripture or some evidence is 20 years old. Somewhere between seven and 20 years old, the young man energy and strength is developed.

In the recent anniversary of D-Day, I saw that famous picture, whatever it is from time, there's somebody taking a picture in the amphibious vessel and they are little boys. They all look younger than Elijah going to storm the beaches of Normandy.

So that age idea helps us to get a picture of the development of them. These designations aren't really attached to age. You could be a younger man who's a father, or you could be an old man who's an infant in the faith.

But this idea of young man and strong and overcoming guys who go and win the victory. The nature of this implies a battle. The young men of the Christian faith go to battle and they emerge victorious.

They take ground for the Lord and they occupy it. They are the foot soldiers in the Lord's army. They conquer. They're the ones who we say, we boys, we got to go take that hill. The boys go run and they take that hill with wild zeal and strength and passion.

We need our young men to be more like that. But also causes me to ask the question, the culture and the society has said that young men are slaves to their lust. That that's just the way young men are.

There's no accounting for a spiritual adolescence by John. Young men are supposed to be conquerors. They're supposed to be able to mortify their flesh and put sin to death. They're supposed to carry themselves in a way that shows the triumph of Jesus Christ.

Young men, I urge you to be conquerors and victorious and to typify and be an example of what a young man ought to be. A conqueror isn't just sit and play video games all day. He goes out and takes hills.

He conquers ground. He discovers new lands. He's always on the move pushing the mission of God forward. We've been too soft on our boys. It's too soft on the young people in the church. They're called to be overcomers, conquerors, victors, subduers.

The young men go to take the hill and the fathers orchestrate the conquests of that hill and future hills. I was thinking about this recently. As you may know, the priestly system in the old covenant at 50 years old, you stopped sacrificing animals.

That was the retirement age. Your priestly service didn't stop. It was very physical labor, slinging a couple hundred pound animals around and doing a number of them in a day. I was thinking about the great wisdom of the Lord.

When we have that early strength of our our teens and our 20s, we don't have the same discipline of mind and wisdom. We haven't experienced enough to walk in the right ways. We tell our children this is not the right direction, but it's hard for them to see it.

When you're 50 or 60 or 70 years old, things come into sharper focus. I remember very vividly, my dad is now a smaller man because he's shrunk. He's never as big as me, but I remember my uncles were trying to move this big heavy thing and they're considerably younger than him.

He's much more frail compared to them big football kind of guys. And he was managing the weight very well. He did not have the strength or the force that they did, but he had wisdom. He understood leverage and levers and where to be and where to put himself.

Is the Lord wise? When a man's physicality begins to diminish a little externally, it's made up for exponentially by his ability to think and reason and be wise and apply. Trues to every situation. The fathers are taking big ground for Christ because the young men are able to labor physically and spiritually and the difficulty in the harshness of the work.

The young man is a righteous man. He has overcome the evil or the wicked one. Look again at verse 13. Young men, in this case, they're not struggling with lust. They're not having a hard time controlling their emotions and their body.

These are young men under control. They're not slaves to their passions. There is no rebellious adolescence allowed. You move from infancy to young man very quickly in the Christian life. So if you have been stagnating in your development, know that you're not putting your shoulder to the plow.

You're tolerating immaturity in yourself. You're not holding yourself to the higher standard. You have been called to bigger and greater things than you may realize. And finally, the last designation is little children.

Look at the end of verse 13. This word is different than that overarching word of those who are all who are forgiven. This really means infants, little ones. This is a child under training, an immature Christian.

Now, what's so startling about this, when we go to verse 14, which seems to be somewhat of a recapitulation of these ideas, John doesn't address the little children again. Are you spiritually mature? Because John doesn't go back to them again.

He goes back to the young men. He goes back to the fathers. Little children, that is a brief window of life and time. If you are a new convert in the Lord Jesus Christ, you better start reading your Bible, coming to every meeting of the church.

You better pray. You better read some more Bible. You better rapidly progress in the faith because there's no allowance for a long period of little childhood here. But again, he swings it back around and says, you have known the father.

If George and Henry were here today and we have the Mahar girls, there are finer points of theology they simply don't know. They have no frame of reference. But very early on, my grandson, Cal, I can see it very early on, they recognize they know who their father is.

They know him. They don't know all that he goes through, but they know that if trouble comes, I'm running to him. If I need a protector or a provider or somebody strong, I'm going to him. That's the assurance that even the youngest Christian, the least mature Christian among us has because they have known the father.

Just like in our families, they have an early, intimate acquaintance and knowledge of their father. They have a childlike trust. It's going to serve them very well. And sadly, as they get more mature, they're going to lose it.

They're be young man strong or father wise, that childlike trust in the father. So we have verse 14. Now, it seems to replay what we just said, and we have to acknowledge that this is here for a reason.

So let's go and look at verse 14. It says, I have written unto you fathers, because you have known him from the beginning. I have written to you young men because you are strong. There's nothing new in the first part of verse 14, but this idea of strength is related to physical strength, endurance.

I wonder how much strength in the church is lost by young men who don't know they have work to do and capacity for a great amount of work in the life of the church. But not only that, you have a great capacity for work in the marketplace.

You could have a couple of jobs and a couple of side businesses because you're strong. When you're in your 50s and 60s, you won't be able to do that as easily. And the idea of strong here is an engaging, combative strength.

We want the elders of the church, it seems, the old guys of the church to fight all the battles for us. But the young men, they have the engaging, combative strength to wage the good warfare, not only against their own sin and to purify and unify their homes and to take a wife and build a business and a family, but they also have this capacity to do it in the public sphere.

They should be the most zealous evangelist in the church. They should be discipling younger men because they have this strength. They do it in God's power and his power stands ready to unleash itself, to bring about his will through faith.

The young man of faith is valiant. He has the strength of soul to sustain the assaults of Satan. The culture has feminized us, but it's also kept us all in boyhood. Young men are strong. Your 10-year-old boys, you should be giving them 15-year-old boy things to do and let them fail, but have some success.

Our 50-year-old boys need to be doing 20-year-old men things and so on. Does that make sense? Young men are strong. You have overcome the wicked one, but the word of God abides in you. The most passionate readers of the scripture, in my experience, in the churches are older people and married women.

It's not universally true. Young men can squeeze in a couple of minutes for the Lord, but it seems to me with all this strength and energy, they should be consuming volumes of the word and systematic theology and biblical theology and apologetics.

It says here that the young men of the faith, and what's really striking is this is the rank lower than the father in development. So think about how the father has to be. The young man has the word of God abiding in him.

The word of God does not depart his mind, his heart, or his lips. It's been permanently established in his soul and exerts its power within. If you don't have this power and this strength, you have not been drinking from the deep wells of Christ and his word.

Again, the closing admonition to the young men is you have overcome, past tense, the wicked one, a present reality for the maturing Christian with an increasing manifestation of it and its practicality.

I want to leave you with a couple of ideas that could be helpful. This will serve as further application of the message and we'll conclude after this. You should take some comfort today, little children in the faith, young ones.

Rejoice. Your sins are forgiven and you know the father. But now you got to start drinking not only some milk, but you got to have some solid food and you got to start developing and growing. Young ladies, don't wait until you're getting married or don't wait for some artificial date today.

Be the most mature, godly woman you could be. Young men, it's time to set childish things behind. You should still go out and have fun, but you are the people who have to take care of business. You're the people who have to conquer hills.

The old men don't conquer the hills anymore. They orchestrate the conquering of hills. You have to be the ones to accomplish this work. Take comfort today in your station. Fulfill your duties and your obligations according to that station wherever you are with a view toward mastery and taking on greater responsibility.

This is coupled with a burning aspirational desire to grow up to full maturity, the full maturity of spiritual fatherhood. Here are six things you need if you're taking notes. This would be helpful. First, if you are not personally growing in godliness, you're going to have little impact in your marriage, your family, the church, or the society.

These strong people they train and they train in the word. They're disciplined in the word. If you're not growing spiritually, if you're not rabidly pursuing Christ and more and more knowledge of him to grow in godliness, you're going to be rendered less effective for all this great kingdom work.

The next thing you need to do is you need to take a wife, or if you're a wife to be taken as a wife, and establish a home. And then you need to be engaged in the nurture and admonition of physical and spiritual children.

We say, well, young moms and young families, you got your hands full with nurturing physical children. It seems to me that you also still have to nurture spiritual children. Don't wait until you're 40 to start discipling other ladies or other men.

You need to grow in your competency and skill and your vocations and callings. If you're a farmer, you better become really good at planting corn and animal husbandry. Whatever your vocation and calling is, become better at it with greater competency and skill so that you'll have more influence, more resources, more responsibility.

That's what you want. You want to take on more and more and more responsibility. This next one is very important. We need the employment of your gifts in building up the church. Every Christian from the youngest person here today, Jonathan was the greeter.

Whatever it is, the job that you can do, we need every Christian in the church, every member to have a ministry in the church. Ryan takes care of all the bulletin stuff. DJ selects psalms and music. Alyssa helps us with the music and selecting psalms that go with the proper tunes that we can sing together.

Caleb and Alex print the bulletins. The Carlys do all the things that they do. Every person needs to have a list of things they do in service to the church. They have to have jobs. We need you to take on a job, create a job, if there isn't a job, to put to work in the life of the church.

In particular, as we embark on this grand, ambitious mission to change Longwood, we need the employment of your gifts, talents, and wisdom in the church, but also to be at work in building a Christian culture that glorifies Christ.

Wherever you are, if you're a child and you're above 12 years old, if you're a child in the faith, you are now behind. You need to be on the young lad's side of things, so start moving in that direction.

If you're a young man in the faith, you better start taking some hills. You better be asking the Lord to give you great wisdom that you might be a spiritual father someday, but you today have to accomplish the mission.

And if you're the father in the faith, you have to multiply labor in the family, the home, the church, the public sphere. That's what the fathers of the faith have to do. It's amazing that our God gives us all these gifts and then his kindness and his mercy, really speaking to us, being created in his image and created with these wills and volition and ambitions, he has provided a place for us to thrive and flourish individually, in our private devotion, in families, in the church, in our business life, and in the community.

Let's take up our responsibility and move the needle forward. Competency where we are with a view to greater maturity and responsibility for the future. Amen. Let's pray together. Oh Lord, wherever we be, and I pray that you would allow us to see where we are on this maturity scale.

I pray that you would cause us to give thanks for where we are, but that we would have holy ambition to move beyond where we are. Oh Lord, I pray that you would quadruple and 10x and 100x my abilities to study and to preach and to pray, to be a pastor.

I pray that you would grant that to everyone here, that today would be a force multiplier in the power of your spirit, whatever we are, that there would be an enlargement of our gifts and our talents and our labor and our diligence for your glory.

Oh Lord, help us to see that these things make a difference now, but they have a tremendous impact on the future. Help us to labor today for a greater harvest tomorrow. I pray that all this would bring glory to the name above all names, the name of Jesus Christ our Lord.