Spiritual Maturity

00:01 Appreciate you working with us this morning in the order of service. We did—I had a text yesterday from Brother Trevor, and he said, "If you were relieved from your responsibilities this morning, would you leave today to head down and miss the snowstorm?" And I said, 00:21 "Well, I'm not ready to go, but one thing that might help is if we could switch to service." And so the rest of the ministry team evaluated that and said that would be fine to do. And so here we are this morning. Appreciate your prayers as we make it down to EBI this afternoon. 00:41 You know, never, never fear for a big snowstorm, but do use extra caution. So that's what we'll try to do. So if you would turn in your copies of the scriptures this morning to the book of Philippians, I want to talk to you on this New Year's Sunday about spiritual maturity. 01:01 And it is a goal and a desire, should be, for every child of God to grow in spiritual maturity. And maturity is something that we all should strive for, just like we do when we're in our natural bodies. We strive to grow. 01:21 Now, you take a little guy, a little girl, one year old, and they look around at their older siblings and they say, "Well, we want to do that. So we'd want to be two years old. Can't wait to be two years old." And when they're two years old, they want to be five years old. And when they're five years old, they want to be ten years old. When they're ten years old, they want to be thirteen. When they're thirteen, they want to be sixteen. 01:41 When they're eighteen, they want to be twenty-two. And, you know, we just—we just want to grow. We want to—we want to reach the next level of maturity. And why is that? Well, I think it's something that God has put in us that has something to do with our experiences. When we—when we grow, we can then move into a deeper and a greater experience. 02:03 So you can't drive a car when you're five. You can't drive a tractor when you're—when you're—when you're two. You can't—you can't do a lot of things when you're young that you look forward to doing when you—when you get older. You generally don't get married when you're fifteen or even seventeen, 02:23 sometimes maybe eighteen, nineteen, twenty. But there's things that we—we want to do as we mature. And so it is spiritually. There are things that we want to do spiritually and we'd like to do for God. We want to serve God more effectively. We want to be more useful in His kingdom as we—as we grow and mature. 02:45 And so that is—is one of the reasons why we should mature. And a mature—spiritually mature person is one whose walk with God has deepened to the point that his character, his wisdom, his insights and understanding and stability can help others. Now, 03:04 we oftentimes want to evaluate ourselves. Is my life making a difference for others? And what do I need to evaluate in my life to make changes in my life so that I can help others? 03:18 And we used to ask a question to new members, "Where do you find yourselves on four levels of maturity?" One is a new believer, just barely getting started and learning the basic things of the Christian life. 03:33 And then the next step would be a growing believer where you've mastered some of the concepts and that you find yourself walking in victory regularly and 03:48 you're growing. You're able to overcome sin. You've got some wins behind you and you've got some notches in your belt, as it were, from winning in the battle. And then you look at the third level, and that is now where you can—where you can help others and assist others in their spiritual growth. 04:05 And then the fourth level would be when you can actually help others who help others in their—in their spiritual growth. So you have the training of leaders and the development of leaders. And so if you look at those four levels of maturity, it seems like when you're—when you're little, when you're—when you're a young Christian, you don't start out training leaders. 04:29 And, you know, you know, you've got to have some wins behind you. You've got to have some victories, and you got to—you got to build on what you know with more knowledge and more—more—more character and more discipline and more depth to your faith until finally you're able to help others and help others who help others. 04:49 And so maturity is a very important thing. And God wants us to be mature. First Corinthians 14 says, "Brethren, be not children in understanding. Howbeit in malice be ye children, but in understanding be men." Hebrews 5 says, "But strong meat belongs to them that are of full age, 05:11 even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil." So as you use your senses of discernment, you become more equipped to discern the difference between good and evil. Very familiar passage in Ephesians 4 that henceforth we be no more children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, 05:32 wherein they lie in wait to deceive. But growing up into Him in all things, who is the Head, even Christ, as newborn babes desire the sincere milk of the Word, you may grow thereby. And also Second Peter 3:18, "But grow in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. 05:52 To Him be glory both now and forever." There is also a fair bit of criticism for those who do not grow, for those who just dig their heels in and say, "You know, I'm just not going to grow. I don't care about growing. I'm just kind of happy where I'm at. I'm stuck and I don't mind staying stuck. 06:11 And I'm ineffective, but I don't mind. I don't mind that." And First Corinthians 3 says, "And I, brethren, could not speak unto you as unto spiritual, but as unto carnal, even as unto bathed in Christ. I fed you with milk and not with meat, for hitherto ye were not able to bear it. 06:29 Neither yet now are ye able." And Paul is frustrated with the carnality and the lack of spiritual maturity in the Corinthian church. Hebrews chapter five, the writer also echoes this, "For when for the time you ought to be teachers, that is, 06:49 helping others in their faith, ye have need that one teach you again, which be the first principles of the oracles of God and are become such as have need of milk." So that's no compliment to be stuck in spiritual growth. In fact, 07:09 when the examples of scripture in the life of Samuel, it says, "The child Samuel grew on and was in favor with both the Lord and also with men." John the Baptist, the child grew and waxed strong in spirit. And Jesus even grew. And the child grew, 07:30 Luke chapter two, and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom. The grace of God was upon him. And Jesus increased in wisdom and stature and favor with God and favor with man. You know, that's a well-balanced... a well-balanced spiritual growth. If you grow physically, you grow emotionally, 07:51 you grow mentally, you grow socially. You should also grow spiritually. Now, when we say... if we say that someone is not growing in a balanced way, then we would say that's unfortunate. That's unfortunate. 08:06 In fact, it's a bit of a tragedy if someone grows physically but doesn't grow mentally. We would say that's cause for concern. Amen. Or if they grow mentally but don't grow physically, that's cause for concern. 08:21 Or if they grow mentally and physically and even intellectually, but they don't grow socially, we say that's cause for concern. We get disturbed when we see someone only growing in just one or two areas and not the rest of his life. Now, why would we not also look at that spiritually where we... 08:42 where we say, "Okay, we have a person here who's growing physically. Yeah, no problem there. Growing mentally, no problem there. Growing socially, nice guy, nice lady, no problem there. But spiritually, they're not growing." And we would say there's something desperately wrong here. 09:01 And so we have to look at that in relationship to our text this morning, Philippians chapter three, verse twelve through sixteen. "Not that I had already attained or am already perfected, but I press on that I may lay hold of that for which Christ Jesus has also laid hold of me. 09:23 Brethren, I do not count myself to have apprehended, but one thing I do for getting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. 09:40 Therefore, let as many as are mature have this mind. And if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal this to you. Nevertheless, to the degree that we have already attained, let us walk by the same rule. Let us be of the same mind," particularly paying attention to verses thirteen, 10:01 fourteen, and the first part of verse fifteen. You say, "What is this about spiritual maturity in this passage of scripture?" Well, if you notice in verse twelve, he uses the term perfected. And in verse fifteen in the Old King James, he also uses the word perfect. Those are two different Greek words. 10:22 The word in verse twelve is the word teliou, which means to finish or to fill something, to make it perfect or complete, to accomplish something, to bring it to an end, to reach a goal, to achieve a purpose. This has the idea of something that is complete and full and finished. 10:44 I have kept the faith. I have finished the race and so on. The word in verse fifteen, "Let us therefore, as many as be perfect or as are mature," that word is the word telious, which means full-grown, adult, mature, nothing lacking, or of full age. 11:05 It has the idea of someone who's grown up. And so Paul says, "I am not already perfect. I have not attained to the degree that I want to attain. I have not yet fully laid hold of the prize of Christ. I'm not perfected, but I am mature." In verse fifteen, 11:26 he says, "Therefore, let us, as many as are mature." So he would place himself in the realm of those who were mature in Christ, but who were not finished with the race yet, who had not completed the race. And so that's where we find spiritual maturity in this passage of scripture. 11:48 He's talking about attaining, attaining unto the resurrection from the dead. If you look up a few verses before that, "Then I may know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his sufferings being made conformable unto his death, if by any means I may attain unto the resurrection of the dead." And I haven't yet attained the resurrection of the dead. 12:10 That's where I'm going. That's my goal. That's my prize. But I am mature. And we can be also. So there is a sense that in all of us today, we have not yet attained, but yet we can be striving for maturity. 12:28 We can strive to be the one whose walk with God has deepened to the point that our character, our wisdom, our understanding, and our stability can help others grow in their faith. Isn't that the kind of Christian you want to be? I think so. 12:47 That's the kind of Christian that we should all strive for. Now, he follows this in verse thirteen by saying, "I do not count myself to have apprehended." He says, "Christ has laid hold on me, and yet I have not fully laid hold on what I'm going after. 13:09 But one thing I do, for getting those things which are behind and reaching forward to those things which are ahead, I press toward the goal. 13:20 I press on, I press toward the mark." Now, I think as I've evaluated this and studied this, I think what Paul is giving us here is a couple aspects of maturity, of spiritual maturity, a couple qualifiers of showing us what maturity looks like. 13:40 And I'd like to give you three things this morning that should be present as we mature. The first thing deals with the past, forgetting those things which are behind. And so we have an attitude in maturity of laying aside, 14:00 having worked through and laying aside, not in the... not in the state of having just swept them under the carpet. Many people are good at sweeping their past under the carpet. And guess what happens? It pops up somewhere else, or they trip over it when they... 14:19 when they... in the dark, when they get up to go to the bathroom, they don't turn the light on, they trip over the lump in the carpet, the obstacle, the toys that were left in the hallway. And so we're not talking about just sweeping things under the rug. 14:35 We're talking about laying something aside because it has been taken care of. And then the second thing we see in this one thing that he does, one thing of pressing on, but it involves three aspects, reaching forward to those things which are ahead. 14:55 So there is a... there is a confidence in the future. There is hope in the spiritually mature. We may look around and say how dark and drab the world is and how it seems to be falling apart in many ways. 15:11 But yet for the child of God, there is a confidence that God is at work and that we can move forward. And then he says, "I press toward the goal. 15:24 I press toward the goal." Now, this may be just a bit of a stretch, but in the pressing toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus, I find two things. Number one, I find a man who is content with his circumstances, but not content with his spiritual development. 15:45 He's content with his circumstances. For other places, Paul says, "I have learned in whatsoever state I am therewith to be content. I have learned how to have much. I have learned how to have nothing. 15:56 And I am content in no matter what condition I'm in." So there is a contentment aspect, but then there is an aspect of striving and not being satisfied with where I'm at spiritually. Okay? So I'm satisfied with my circumstances, but not with my spiritual walk. 16:17 So I want to keep pressing on toward the mark. So let's look at these things this morning. First of all, we see someone who is at peace with his past. And Paul had quite a past, did he not? In chapter three of Philippians, he talks about his past. He had something in which to glory in his past. 16:37 He was a Pharisee. He was an outstanding Pharisee. He was probably a wealthy man, a very influential man, and a very man of great convictions and of great knowledge. And yet he also was a man who had an attitude. He was not a loving man. He was a harsh man. 16:56 He was a... he was a critical man. He was a covetous man, he says in other places in his testimony. And he also was a man who had persecuted the church of Christ. Can you imagine Paul going into a synagogue and sharing Christ? 17:16 And in that synagogue were some people that he put in prison. Or maybe he had overseen the death of some of their relatives. Maybe Stephen's family was in the audience sometimes where he was. And so Paul had some things in his past that he could be proud of, 17:35 but he said, "Those things I consider as rubbish." And he had some things that he could be really discouraged about. 17:43 But he laid aside those things because he worked through them to the point where he could give them to Christ, "For I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed unto him against that day." He said, 18:00 "I've committed these things to the Lord." And I think there was probably some repenting and some restitution and some offenses mended in Paul's life and ministry that needed to happen. Now, what does that say to us? Well, every one of us has a past. If you're here this morning and you're more than one day old, 18:21 you have a past. Now, one of the things about children is they don't remember much of their past. And as they grow, they get to remember more of their past. But all of us have a past. And if I asked you to describe your past this morning, some may use the term, "Well, I have a boring past. Not much happened in my life." Or, 18:40 "I have an exciting past." Or, "I have a painful past." Or, "I have a pleasant past." Or all kinds of words we may use to describe. "I have a lonely past. I have a sinful past." Maybe whatever we can do to describe our past, sometimes we need to take a look at it and say, 18:59 "Is there anything in my past that I'm stumbling over in my pursuit of Christ?" And the pressing on the mark toward the mark. Now, I don't believe that we have to go back digging around and sniffing around in our past and try to find out what... 19:17 find the key to unlock my inner world so that I can not struggle anymore. I think some of that is misplaced. 19:30 But I do think there is something to the fact that when the Lord brings something to our minds and there is a stumbling block in my life, it is helpful. It is helpful to look in the past and see, "What has contributed to this in my life?" So I can resolve it. 19:51 So I can resolve it and put it to rest and no longer be impacted by the negative feelings and hurt and pain. This especially comes out when people have painful experiences in their past. You see, all of us probably, if we were to get right down and honest, 20:13 have things in our past that if we let them would cripple us, unresolved issues that if we let them would severely stunt our growth. And some people, you can see it. You see the struggles they're having today, 20:33 and you compare that with what you know about their past and say, "I wonder if there's something there that needs to be addressed." That's okay. One writer says, "Unresolved anger freezes our emotional maturity near where it was when the hurtful offense occurred." Have you had that? 20:52 Have you experienced that? I have. And I'm sure many of you have, maybe haven't identified. But somewhere along the way, someone, something, or some event let you down and has the potential not of just crippling you, but of severely wounding you. Sometimes this creates anger. 21:12 Sometimes it creates bitterness. Sometimes it creates hurts that we compensate for in other parts of our lives. 21:21 My observation, brothers and sisters, in working with people and in evaluating my own life is that those who reach maturity have dealt with those stumbling blocks in their past and laid them aside. Not swept them under the rug, 21:42 but laid them aside, brought them to the Lord Jesus Christ for forgiveness and for healing. Now, that has to do with the two aspects that Paul would have had and one thing, some of the things that we're proud of. We got to get over that. And some of the things that we're ashamed of, we got to get over that. 22:04 We got to lay it aside so that we can pursue Christ and so that we can say, "You know what? I am no longer bound by my past experiences." And in doing that, we have to remember that not only are we... 22:21 do we have experiences, but we have responses to experiences that are troublesome. In fact, you can take two members of the same family and you have given them similar experiences, and one will turn out bitter and the other will turn out better. Why? Because one, they respond to those experiences in a completely different way. 22:42 So not only are our problems with our past such that we had something happen to us, but we oftentimes have responded to that thing in a way that was not helpful in our spiritual development. So Paul, again, had a past. 23:03 But his point here is, if I'm going to press toward the goal of the prize, I'm going to forget those things. And the word forget there is neglect or not caring for, given over to oblivion. It no longer matters what happened to me. It no longer matters how I responded. 23:24 I am now free from my past. And it's interesting how God uses the things in our past then that we have become free from to help others and to minister to others. I see it happen in my present ministry with the inmates. 23:40 Wherever they've been going through, one thing that gives them hope is that when they're free and they find freedom in Christ and they find forgiveness is, "I think God could use me and my testimony to help somebody else." Amen. Amen. If you just sit on that testimony and you don't use it, 23:59 then you're actually not comforting others with the comfort that we have received, 2 Corinthians 1. 24:06 Now, one of the reasons I had Brother Dwayne read from Genesis 50 is because you had an example there with Joseph and the sons of Jacob, the 10 brothers, the 10 big, bad, mean boys that beat up on Joseph, 24:27 that robbed him of how many years of his life with his family. And you know the story of Joseph. You know the account. 24:37 And yet when it came to dealing with this past, somewhere along the line, whether it was in Potiphar's house or whether it was in prison or somewhere along the line, Joseph came to grips and to peace with what had been done to him. 24:56 And you find that in Genesis 50. Genesis 50, where the boys come and say, "Now Dad, when he was living..." And we don't know if he actually said this or not or if they were trying to put that on the lips of him. We don't know. The text doesn't say. 25:14 "But Dad told us to tell you..." It's a little suspicious there. "Dad told us to tell you that you really should not come after us for what we did." And I guess that was kind of a lame duck way of saying we're sorry. 25:34 At least acknowledging the elephant in the room would have what had happened. And Joseph wept. Joseph wept. Why did he weep? I don't think he was weeping for himself. I think he was weeping because of all the things that he had done to them to show them his love for his brothers. 25:54 They still didn't get it. Joseph was at peace with his past. The brothers were not at peace with the past. But they became at peace when there was reconciliation and forgiveness. How did Joseph do that? Through forgiveness, forgiving the offenses of others, 26:15 through humility, through cleansing of his conscience, through repenting of his pride. Joseph was an arrogant young man. And it's no wonder. If he'd have been my brother, I'd have probably had some attitude toward him too. I don't hope I wouldn't have done what they did. But this young upstart who thinks he knows everything more than anybody else, I've seen people like that. 26:36 I've probably been like that myself. But he forgave. He humbled himself. He cleansed his conscience. And he reached out in love. He dealt with the past. And I encourage you that if there are things that you're struggling with, get help. It's not wrong to ask for help. 26:58 In fact, there is a real ministry in people helping people. And part of that, that's what ministry is, by the way, people helping people. And so we deal with those things so that we can move on. We don't get stuck there. 27:13 Some people, what we call it navel gazing, where they just gaze at themselves for so long and then they get stuck doing that. No, don't do that. Just do it long enough to resolve so that you can get back to pursue... so that you can pursue Christ and get back to helping others. 27:30 And then a second thing is I have discovered that those who have a spiritual mature outlook on life have a certain confidence and hope in the future. A confidence in the future reaching forward to those things which are ahead, reaching forward. 27:52 You could also call it hope. Hope could be defined as believing that there's something tomorrow that is going to be better than today. And I don't mean just tomorrow, Monday, better than Sunday. I mean the tomorrows of my life are something worth reaching out for. 28:12 You see, people get discouraged. They lack hope. They get down. They think there's nothing in life that will ever be any better. They're hopeless. They're in this cage. They'll never get out. They're just stuck and can never have any peace. And it's just always going to be this way. 28:32 No. No. When we bring our lives to the Lord, He gives us hope. Now, you could ask me, "Are you confident, Brother Todd, about the future of the American economy?" My answer would no. Would be no. 28:48 "Are you confident about the social struggles in our country?" And I'd probably have to say no. I have no confidence or very little confidence in the things of the world around me. But do you have confidence in the future? And for the child of God, the answer should be yes. 29:08 Yes. "Because I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that he is able to keep that which I have committed to him against that day." Against that day. And so there is a day coming when all of the wrongs are going to be made right. 29:27 Paul says about those who run races and receive the prize, "So then run that you may obtain." There is a prize at the end. There is a reward. "And every man that striveth for the mastery is temperate in all things. Now, they do it to obtain a corruptible crown, but we an incorruptible. 29:48 I therefore so run, not as uncertainly, so fight I, not as one that beateth the air, but I keep my body and bring it unto subjection, lest that by any means when I have preached to others I myself should be a castaway." Then he says in 2 Timothy, 30:04 "Henceforth there is laid up for me a crown of righteousness which the Lord the righteous judge shall give me at that day, and not to me only, but to all them that love his appearing." There is a reward at the end. There's payday someday. May not be today. 30:24 But don't let that dim your confidence and your hope. Keep hope alive. Reaching forward. The idea here in this phrase of reaching forward, reaching forward is to strain, to stretch out into. It was this that gave David comfort in the death of his child. 30:43 When his child, that illegitimate child, was born and then immediately died, he dusted himself off and said, "I'm no longer going to mourn. I thought maybe while I was mourning, I could somehow convince God to save and spare this child. 31:02 But now I cannot do that. And so I will have confidence in that one day I will go to him, that is to where the child is in the presence of the Lord, even though that child cannot come back to me." There was triumph over his enemies. 31:18 Even in the days when Paul or when Saul was 31:24 out to get him, he says, "There is coming a time when I know that God will keep his promises. He will keep his promises." And so David said in several Psalms, "Why art thou disquieted, my soul? Why art thou disquieted within me?" And he says, then he comes to the end of that Psalm and says, "Hope thou in God, 31:45 for I shall yet praise him who is the help of my confidence and my God." Jesus had this hope who for the joy that was set before him, before him, coming kingdom after the cross, the agony of the cross, 32:02 who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross despising the shame and is set down at the right hand of the throne of God. Abraham had this confidence in his sacrifice. Hebrews tells us of Abraham that he believed that God was even able to raise Isaac from the dead. 32:21 That's why he could raise the knife and be ready to sacrifice his own son, his one and only begotten son, the son of covenant. And he was ready to do it. Why could he do it? Because he believed in the resurrection that God could bring him back to life. 32:38 He could sacrifice his son because God had promised that he would have descendants like the sands of the sea and the stars of the sky. And it would come through Isaac. And Isaac couldn't do that if he was dead on the altar. So somehow God was going to intervene. 32:54 This is how he could let Ishmael go because God had promised that the birth would not be through the handmaid. Her name escapes me right now. But it would be through an Ishmael. But it would be through Sarah and Isaac. And so he could let Ishmael go and have confidence that God was working. 33:15 And so we want to have confidence in the future. Now, in the last couple of minutes here, I want to give you the final characteristic. 33:26 I have noticed that those who have a spiritual maturity perspective, a spiritually mature perspective, are people who can be content with their present and yet not satisfied with their spiritual condition. 33:44 Content with their surroundings but not satisfied with their spiritual condition. Sometimes we're satisfied with our spiritual condition and discontented with our surroundings. In fact, generally, if we're complacent in our spiritual condition, we will not be content. 34:05 And which comes first, I'm not sure, except they feed each other. So those who are spiritually mature have a passion to press on and a contentment with the condition of their circumstances. Timothy writes, "Godliness with contentment is great gain. 34:25 Having food and raiment let us therewith be content." Hebrews 13, "Let your conversation be without covetousness." And you see, if you're not content with your circumstances, you're probably going to succumb to the temptation of covetousness. And so let us be content with such things as we have. 34:44 "For he has said, 'I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee,' so that we may boldly say, 'The Lord is my helper, and I will not fear what man shall do unto me.'" We can be content while not being satisfied with our walk. Someone has written this, "When you can think of yesterday without regret and tomorrow without fear"—past, 35:07 future—"you are very near contentment." I like that. I like that. Most of us won't be content with our lot until it's a lot more, unfortunately. 35:19 Someone else has said, "A contented person is one who enjoys the scenery along a detour." I remember preaching this in the church and pastors would come up to me afterwards and said, "I feel like my whole life the last couple of years has been one long detour." All right, sister, can you be content with the scenery where God is taking you? 35:37 He may show you things you've never seen before. I was riding with my granddaughter down the road the other day on the way to the airport. And she was complaining to her mom, "Mom, isn't there anything to do in this van? All there is to do is look out the window." I said, "Well, that's a good thing to do. Think of all the things you can learn looking out the window." Look out the window. 35:58 See what God wants to teach us. A bishop in the early church said this about contentment, "It consists in nothing more than making a right use of my eyes. In whatever state I am, I first of all look up to heaven and remember that my principal business here is to get there. 36:18 Then I look down upon the earth and call to mind how small a place I shall occupy in it when I die and am buried. I then look around in the world and observe what multitudes there are who are in many respects more unhappy than myself. Thus, I learn where true happiness is placed, 36:37 where all our cares must end, and what little reason I have to complain." Sounds like spiritual maturity to me. Story is told of a little boy who was sitting with a lady who was visiting in their home. And they had some meat on the plate. And normally, mom would cut up his meat. 36:57 And the visitor, she kind of reached over and took her knife and fork and was going to cut his meat for him. She said, "Little boy, may I cut your meat?" And he kind of, "Well, yeah, I guess." And she said, "Well, I may not cut it the way you like it." And he said this, "I will like it the way you cut it, even if you don't cut it the way I like it." That's contentment. 37:20 That's contentment. That's gratefulness. A gentleman traveling on a misty morning asked a shepherd what the weather would be. "It will be," said the shepherd, "what weather pleases me." Being requested to explain his meaning, he said, "Sir, it shall be what weather pleases God. And what weather pleases God pleases me." That's contentment. 37:42 That's contentment. Matthew Henry, the Bible commentator, after being robbed, wrote this in his diary, "Let me be thankful, first, because I was never robbed before. Second, because although they took my wallet, they did not take my life. Third, because although they took my all, it was not much. And fourth, 38:02 because it was I who was robbed and not I who robbed." Grateful. You see, we can find something positive in every circumstance if we look for it. If we look for it. 38:17 If we look for it, we can have the best circumstances in the whole wide world and find something negative to complain about. Or we can have some of the worst circumstances in the whole wide world and have something to give thanks for. I remember reading about two prisoners of war. One was a Christian. One was not a Christian. 38:36 I think one was a pastor maybe during World War II. And they would tap Morris Code messages on the cell block or on the concrete or whatever and on the bars. 38:49 And the one guy who was not a Christian said, "This is hell to be alone in the cell." And the pastor typed back, "Oh, but it is heaven to be alone with one's God." Perspective. Perspective. 39:10 I have noticed that those who are mature and who are growing in maturity, while they remain dissatisfied with their pursuit of Christ and where they're at spiritually, they are very content with the things around them. Let's pray. 39:30 Father, thank you for this word from the Apostle Paul and from the Holy Spirit, from the heart of God. Bring us, Lord, to maturity. 39:42 We are somewhat reluctant to pray that, Lord, because we know that to be brought to maturity means we must be stretched and exercised and challenged and all those things that make us feel uncomfortable. But, 40:02 Lord, there are some experiences that we want to have that we can't have in our present lack of maturity. So, Lord, lift us up on higher ground. In Jesus' name. Amen.