The 6 Stages in Our Journey of Faith - Aaron McRae

You can grab a seat.

How are you doing today?

So glad that you're here.

Those of you online want to welcome you for watching or listening online.

In uh a few minutes after the message, we'll take uh a moment to pass engagement buckets.

If you're here in person and um you have a prayer need, we would love for you to write that down on a prayer request that's in a uh chair back in front of you or behind you.

Um if you're new here, we would love to know who you are so we could give you some information about what's going on here.

If you've come prepared to give, there's an envelope in the back of chairs and the uh QR code in front of you also connects you there.

But we just want to say welcome.

And if there's any way that we can serve you, we want to do that.

And and so we'll pass those buckets.

You can place those in the bucket in just a moment.

I have a personality profile quiz I want to give you that I completely made up all on my own this week.

Are you ready?

Okay, how many of you, when it comes to traveling, you like Waze?

That is your app of choice.

You like wait raise them high.

You're a Waze kind of person, and so if your hand is up in the air, you're the kind of person who you're on the highway, you don't mind a reroute through a neighborhood if it if it saves you 23 seconds.

Like Waze does the craziest things, and you'll be like, I know we're going there, but for some reason it says go there, then go there, then go there, and you'll save just seconds.

And some of you are like, Yes, anything to save seconds.

You're the same people, by the way, who you pass in like the exit ramplane and you go around.

We know who you are.

How many of you are like, no, no, no, no, I'm not a Waze, I'm a Google Maps, Apple Maps, whatever, something else.

Anything but Waze, you're in that crowd.

You're like, give me the trusted source, even if it does cost me 23 extra seconds.

You're you're like, that's who I'm.

I'm that kind of person.

Um, I used to be Waze, now in my old wise ways, I'm anti-ways.

What I want to talk about today is we're all on some kind of journey.

We we know that for life, but I want to more specifically, we're all on some kind of faith journey.

Some kind of story that is being woven through our lives, and we want to talk specifically, specifically, we don't usually do this specifically to Christians who are on a faith journey.

If you're here and you're not a Christian, you get to listen in and you get to say, you guys aren't doing such a good job at this.

That's a whole other thing.

Because sometimes on journeys, there's detours that are out of our control, and we have to navigate.

Sometimes there's wrong turns because we chose to take a wrong turn.

And there's always this opportunity to reorient, to get back on track.

So we're gonna talk about the length of this journey and the goal.

In 2008, uh, my family, we were living in the suburbs of Chicago in Illinois, and long story short, we felt like God was leading us to move to Arizona to be a part of a new thing that God was doing.

Our kids were three, four, and our oldest Olivia literally turned six when we got into Arizona.

So we had packed up all of our belongings into this big old U-Haul uh truck.

We had a trailer pulling one of our cars, and then what the other car would follow.

Because our kids were so young, we just decided my wife would fly with the kids and we would meet there.

So we had a U-Haul.

It looked a little bit like this.

This isn't it, but look at this picture.

It had a car hauler behind it, but our U-Haul was a lot, lot bigger than that because I don't know if you're listening.

We had kids at three, four, and six years old, so we had so much kids' stuff to pack in this.

And so what I didn't know is before I got to the U-Haul dealership, one of the people had hooked the trailer up to the truck incorrectly.

And when they took off, the trailer fell off the truck.

And when it fell off the truck, it engaged the emergency parking brake on the trailer.

That means everything was locked up on the trailer, if you don't know what that means.

So by the time I get there, they don't tell me, they forget to mention that.

I jump in a U-Haul truck and I take off down the road to load up our stuff in our car.

And all of a sudden, everybody passing me on the road is like, and I'm like, oh, they see that we're moving and they're wanting to say, good luck on your trip.

Hey, how are you?

Good luck, thank you.

And they keep on doing it for like half of a mile, like waving, and I'm like, hi, good to see you, thank you.

I didn't know you knew me, but okay.

And then I realized, no, there's smoke coming off the trailer because the tires are locked up, and for half a mile, I had drugged a trailer down the road, and the tires were almost catching on fire, and there's smoke everywhere, and people are like, stop driving, you idiot.

Pull over, but I couldn't see it.

And so that's some kind of a way to start a journey when you're trying to get from Illinois all the way to Arizona.

And what we want to talk about today is the kind of journey that that it's going to have bumps and sideways turns and wrong turns and that kind of thing.

But like when my parents and I took off, my parents helped me drive in the other car, um, and leaving Illinois, we didn't have, I don't know if you know this, we didn't have in that day maps on smartphones.

We had a what's it called?

PVN, personal navigation device, a garmin.

But it didn't really have good sales signals, so you also had a paper map all the way from Illinois to Arizona to try to navigate every turn along the way.

But even in our faith life, our faith life, here's what we want to talk about.

We're invited to a lifelong, faith-filled journey with Jesus.

And the surprise ending is realizing at the end of the day, the journey was never just about you, and very few people realize that.

And most people they they're they're aiming at life and they're like, and I'm going to retire, and then I'm going to quit, and then I'm going to do nothing.

Doesn't that sound amazing?

And what if there's just a different purpose at the end of the journey that God has for us?

I know a lot of you are retired, and you do the exact opposite of nothing.

But there's a purposefulness that is there that God wants us to know the destination, the journey, and the purpose.

George Barn, he's a researcher, he wrote a book years ago called Maximum Faith.

I've got a long quote, but I thought it was so good I wanted to read the whole thing to you.

He writes this knowing the purpose of the journey is critical.

You're not likely to experience full transformation if you don't know what it is and are not devoted to its pursuit.

Most Christians' uh goals mirror cultural goals, desiring happiness, comfort, security, belonging, and popularity.

Surprisingly few are focused on uh completely cooperating with God to experience the kind of, I love this, whole life transformation described in the Bible and made possible only through a partnership with God.

The lack of understanding of the goals of a truly Christian life prevents people from making the extraordinary life transition that are possible.

There's a different kind of goal with a different kind of purpose, and if we're going to experience it, we have to journey God's way.

So we finish up an entire series on for three parts.

What we believe and why it matters.

We've been going through our statement of faith.

What do we believe and why does it matter?

And so today's the last day.

This is part two.

We did part one last week of the Christian life.

What do we believe about the Christian life?

What's our theology of this?

We talked last week.

Look at these three things.

We talked last week about adoption, that we're invited to be in the family of God, to belong to Jesus and find that identity.

We talked about imitation, becoming like Jesus by doing certain things, by stopping doing certain things to become like Jesus and participation, behaving like Jesus.

And I defined it not morally doing the right thing only, but seeking first his kingdom, being about his purposes and his ways.

And so today we want to sort of do part two of what a life with Jesus looks like.

And I just want to tell you up front, it's going to be different than a lot of the sermons I give around here, but I think it's incredibly important.

And part of what I want to talk about is taken from a book called The Critical Journey.

It's this uh stages of development.

You can put the picture of that book up.

The stages of development of a journey of Jesus and how we have a tendency, if we're not careful, to get stuck at certain stages.

But God has purposes beyond for us, and he wants us to journey there.

So if you have your Bible, grab that, please.

Turn to John chapter 15.

John 15 · chapter mention

John chapter 15 is for many of us very familiar.

John 15 · chapter mention

We're gonna walk through some verses and even read a few verses over and over again.

But here's the core of what I want us to understand.

John 15 is in the dead middle of Jesus' upper room discourse.

He has his disciples in an upper room in for 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, those chapters, he's getting them ready.

Ready for what?

He's leaving them.

He's going to a cross.

They're going to be persecuted.

Trouble is on the way, and he's getting his disciples ready.

Things aren't always going to be easy.

They're not always going to go your way.

How do you keep your head, keep your heart, stay focused on the purposes of God?

And John 15 is in the middle, middle of that.

Okay?

So are you ready to take a journey?

We'll get to John 15 in just a moment.

Let me give you step number one in the critical journey, as according to these authors.

Step number one is this the recognition of God.

The recognition of God.

A journey begins in the Christian life with a recognition of God, coming to the end of ourselves, realizing, wait a minute, God loves me?

Even though I've done wrong, Jesus went on a cross for us.

It's coming to this understanding.

We're humbled when we see his power and when we see his love.

It's probably encapsulated in John 3.16 as good as anywhere.

You know John 3.16, right?

For God so loved the world, that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

It's coming to understand that the God so loved the world means God so loved me.

It's a recognition and coming aware to the fact that God loves us, He's awesome, He is amazing.

Umbe you're like, why didn't somebody tell me this sooner?

Or maybe you're like, I think they tried to tell me, but I wasn't really listening.

But this is good news.

Life may have greater meaning.

You start to have uh some of your questions addressed.

You start to learn how do I deal with shame and guilt and anger in my life.

That's that's stage one.

Stage two, the authors talk about you, you're you're progressing a little bit.

You move to stage two, the life of discipleship.

The life of discipleship is faith, is you're learning more about God.

You're learning to grow in trust of God, you're you're learning to obey the teachings.

And that's where we get to John 15, and I'll start reading in verse 4, teachings like this.

Jesus says, Remain in me as I also remain in you.

No branch can bear fruit by itself, it must remain in the vine.

Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.

So when you're at this stage, so maybe something like this would jump out.

You read a passage like verse 4, and you get in me, in the vine, in me, the way we talk about this around here is that we're called to be Christ-centered.

Christ-centered.

I liken that a little bit different than being Jesus first, because I think the problem with us, if we're like God is first, Jesus is first, when we go to church, we check that off of our list.

Now let me live the rest of my life.

Versus saying, this is about Christ being the center of everything, the center of all of my life.

And this is the in me, the in the vine, the in me that Jesus refers to we're in a relationship, a growing, developing, intimate relationship.

Stage two, a life of disciples, a time of learning.

It's a time of growing and understanding, like an apprentice.

You're you're learning and absorbing truth.

There's a sense of excitement because also stage two is about association.

You you learn you belong in the family of God, but now you find your tribe.

Maybe you connect with a church, maybe you connect with a teacher, maybe you connect with a podcast, maybe you connect with a cause, and you're like, this matters.

Association's important.

Warning, warning.

Just be sure your primary association is with Jesus, not some other teacher, church, cause, but the primary association is with Jesus.

We're connected with him, in him, in the vine, in him, belonging to Jesus, having a relationship with him.

Stage three is a transition to activity.

It's called the productive life.

Understanding we have responsibility, we serve, maybe even we're invited to lead something in the church or in a in a ministry or in a cause.

Look at what Jesus says.

Again, we'll read verse four, but we'll add verse five.

Remain in me as I also remain in you.

No branch can bear fruit by itself.

He's like, you can't do really important things by yourself.

It must remain in the vine, neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.

I am the vine and you are the branches.

If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit.

Apart from me, you can do nothing.

So if stage three is the productive life, when we read that passage, you know what jumps out the most at some of us?

Bear fruit.

Do stuff, make a difference.

If you're a good American, you're like, what?

I can be successful for God, I can bear much fruit.

I want to do that.

That's the productive life.

Understanding your life can have impact.

It's best described as a doing stage.

You get you get involved.

It's an active phase.

We're consciously engaged with God.

Become aware of our gifts.

Put those to use in our community of faith and around the world.

Maybe take on some kind of responsibility.

But the threat and the warning here is that you can burn out.

You can get tired.

You can say maybe you're here and you're like, I used to serve, I used to do a lot, but I got tired.

And now I just attend church occasionally and read my Bible sometimes.

And pray when I'm sad.

But I used to be faithful.

Or there was a time I felt close to God.

I wanted his will, but we just sort of grew apart.

And now I just sort of show up at church.

Or when I was poor, hurting, or desperate, I was going after God, but then I got successful and drifted away.

The critical journey, here's the part I wanted you to get right now.

The authors state the church, most churches, ours included, is best suited for working in people in stages one, two, and three.

And the reality is probably 90% of people who are Christians never go beyond stage three, is what they're saying.

So so look at this real quick.

Stage one, stage two, stage three.

The recognition of God could be known as believing.

You start to believe.

The life of discipleship, belonging, you start to connect, the productive life, behaving, you start to serve, you start to get involved.

I was just really praying through this this week about myself.

Look at those three stages.

And I realized it was until probably about 34, 35 years of age that I went beyond stage three.

And I had a seminary degree and been a pastor for a long time at that time.

So something's got to happen to just say the goal of transformation isn't be busy at church or with religious things.

The goal's not just activity, that activity is not going to be enough.

These are needed stages.

And if you are 12 years old, you're going to be in one of these stages.

You're just meeting God and learning to grow.

And if you're 62, but you've only been a Christian for four months, you're at one of these stage one, stage two, stage three.

Here's all I want to say.

Most of our sermons are addressed to stage one, two, and three.

I just want to say, but the purpose of God in your life is beyond stage one, stage two, stage three.

There's more that God has for you.

And I want to talk about an invitation that God has for us to go beyond where most of us have ever gone before and just realize your journey's not over.

Isn't that good news?

Your journey with Jesus isn't over.

So there's stage four.

The journey inward.

The journey inward.

Here's where we gotta we've gotta face ourselves, we've got to face our hurts, we've got to face our disappointments.

We've got to do something Jesus did a lot of reflect.

Solitude.

Some inward work.

Look at verse five one more time in John 15.

Jesus says, I am the vine and you are the branches.

If, that's a big if.

If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit.

But here's a warning apart from me, you can do nothing.

Could you leave that verse up there?

And could we just all read that verse out loud together?

Will you do that with me?

Let's read uh verse five.

Go.

I am the vine and you are the branches.

If you remain in me and I in you, you will bear much fruit.

Apart from me, you can do nothing.

Jesus gets really bold here.

And he says, here's what I need you to know.

If you'll remain in me, if you'll let me remain in you, you're gonna bear fruit, you're gonna make a difference.

But you got to understand this apart from me, you can do nothing.

Is Jesus literally saying you can do nothing, accomplish nothing in life apart from him?

No.

He's actually not saying that.

You can do a whole lot in life without Jesus.

You just can't do anything of eternal value without Jesus.

You can succeed at all the wrong things or just good things in life.

They just won't be the kingdom things that he also wants you to be a part of, in addition to those things.

I was reading a book and challenged by this idea.

Think if you've got your Bible open, look at verse five.

What would happen if we took verse five out of the Bible?

That'd be dangerous, number one.

But if we took verse five out of the Bible and there was no remain in me and I and you, if there was no, if you stay in me, you'll bear much fruit.

If there was no apart from me, you can do nothing, what would happen?

I think what would happen is we would think, okay, here's what God wants from us.

Just stay busy and do a lot.

Just keep serving.

I don't feel like it, I'm tired.

It doesn't matter.

Get busy, do more.

But what Jesus is saying, no, no, no, no, no.

Remember this.

You need to find yourself in Christ and find Christ in you.

That apart from Jesus, we're not able to do the things that we're called to do.

We may think activity equals maturity, and it doesn't.

Because kids are some of the busiest people I know.

And they're not mature, they're not supposed to be their kids.

Activity does not equal maturity.

We've got to find ourselves, and then even our gifts, our talents, our resources in Christ.

And stage four is marked by a deep, very personal journey inward.

And some of you are good Southern Californians and you're like, journey inward.

No thanks.

But if you want to go to stage four, the invitation is journey inward with Jesus.

This may be precipitated by a crisis.

And a crisis forces you to look inside because you can't fix things like you used to fix things.

You move from a posture of I've got all the answers.

That's what stage three was about.

I'm getting more certainty in life, to there's just some things in life I just can't understand.

And you start seeking deep inner direction.

Stage four, God unsettles us very often.

Some have called it a dark night of the soul.

And it's a time for solitude, it's a time to listen to God's voice and hear what he says.

It's a time to go beneath the surface of our lives and let God work through deep secrets, wounds, fears, and insecurity.

And God unsettles those things.

We let our God's will be our will.

We start stop fighting.

Maybe someone would say, I thought I trusted God, and then I lost somebody I loved, and I just questioned everything.

Because the certainty of stage two wasn't enough for the uncertainty of stage four.

Or you faced a crisis or was afraid, ill-equipped to lean into this and just reverted back.

And that's what the authors say often you'll get to stage four, and if you don't make it through, you go back to another stage because at the end of stage four, there's something that they call the wall.

You hit a wall.

Jesus actually makes a wall clear, I think, when he says, Does anybody want to be my disciple?

Anyone want to be my disciple?

Let them what?

Deny themselves, take up their cross, and follow me.

That's a wall.

If you're not willing to do that, that's a wall.

You you face a wall.

In this wall phase, it's critical, uh, it's in stage four, but it's critical to be seen uh uniquely.

It's about surrender.

Are we actually willing to surrender?

The wall is a place of wrestling, of dying to self, of waiting for a new transformation, a deeper transformation.

And we must go through the wall.

We can't go around it.

There's no escalator to avoid.

When in Jesus, when in chapter 16, Jesus says, In this world you will have trouble.

But take hard, I've overcome the world.

He's like, Take hard, be courageous, you can do this, but it's a deeper kind of journey.

Uh years ago, when I was young, I I did this study called Experiencing God.

And one of the lines, one of the uh stages he hasn't experiencing God, it's called a crisis of belief.

And Henry Blackbeard writes this God's Invitation for you to work with him.

His invitation always leads to a crisis of belief that requires faith and action.

He's like, if you want to go on with God, read the Bible, look at every other character.

There will be a crisis of belief that requires faith and action, courageous action to move forward with God.

To go through that wall.

And if we journey with Jesus and we get into stage four and we hit the wall and we journey with Jesus through it, we will come out of the other side transformed.

And this is what hangs in the balance.

Neil Cole, in his book Ordinary Hero, has this quote.

I consider this a haunting quote.

I shared with our staff, I shared with you, and I thought, yes, let's just all be haunted by this quote together.

Ultimately, each church will be evaluated by only one thing, its disciples.

Your church is only as good as her disciples.

It does not matter how good your praise.

We've got pretty amazing praise here, right?

Your preaching, your programs, or property.

We've got really amazing property here, don't we?

If your disciples are passive, needy, consumerist, and not moving in the direction of radical obedience, your church is not good.

Ouch.

Anybody else feel ouch or just me?

If we only ask, what's in this for me?

What does this place have to do for me?

What does God want to do for me?

What do I like?

What do I need?

What are my preferences, my desires?

I'll be about that.

Then we won't be able to be the kind of disciples that Christ is trying to form us to be.

Because the journey inward makes us wrestle with those very things, and the wall may be our selfishness, our personal preferences.

And he's trying to lead us through that to the other side where real life and purpose begins.

Real life and purpose begins there.

So that takes us to stage five: the journey outward.

God transforms us.

This is this is sort of the posture I've been thinking about.

God transforms us.

If this is God, and he transforms us in order to face other people.

To face and engage with other people.

Look at verse uh starting in 9 of John 15.

Jesus says, As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you.

Now remain in my love.

If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love.

So Jesus is like, You want to remain in my love, here's how you do it.

Keep the commandments.

He'll even answer that one in a moment.

What is the commandments?

Um I've already lost my place.

If you keep my commandments, you remain in my love.

Oh, here's.

Just as I have kept my father's commands and remain in his love.

I have told you this so that your, so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.

Jesus is like, I don't want to just make you happy.

That's like a worldly superficial thing.

I want to give you joy, a completion of joy.

My command is this love each other.

Say this with me, how?

As I have loved you.

Jesus says, here's my command.

Here's what I want you to be a part of.

I want you to be a part of loving other people as I have loved you.

And we talked about this last week.

How has Jesus loved us?

Unconditionally, sacrificially.

He's like, I want you to love other people.

The journey that he has us on, if we go through this wall of whatever it is, crisis, selfishness, if we go through the wall, it's a journey outward towards other people where Jesus says, I want you to love other people just as I have loved you.

So stage four, the journey outward, is one where we are surrendered to God.

And our eyes are open to the painful mysteries of life, but the grace of God and the mercy of God in those mysteries.

We're emerging with a fresh focus on other people, not ourselves.

It's no longer all about me and what's in this for me.

We become aware there's a deep purpose that God has for us in this world.

And it's and it's a stillness and a calm, a settledness, not anxiety, not fear, a calmness, a stillness in our souls, because we're walking in full trust to God, even in the middle of crisis.

It doesn't mean we're not affected.

I mean, look at Jesus in the garden.

He's weeping, he's sweating drops of blood, saying, If there's another way, Father, lead me in another way, nevertheless, not my will but yours be done.

There's a renewed sense of acceptance, letting go of anger and bitterness and past hurts.

See, here's the dilemma.

Here's how I was thinking through this.

If we're going to be in this stage of a journey outward, we will have to have grown past some of the former stageways in order to care for people who are suffering, care for people who are in crisis, care for people in their troubles.

If we're stuck in stage two, stage two is about clarity, about certainty, about answers as you're becoming a disciple.

If you're stuck there, you may have a tendency to go to somebody in crisis with simple answers for profound problems.

I was in the emergency room one time when a child had just died from a tragic accident.

When someone walked in the room and before the parents said, Well, God has a plan.

That's a terrible time for that truth.

But if you need certainty in the most heartbreaking situations, because you're in stage two, you're not going to be able to meet people in the depths of their pain.

If you're stuck in stage three, it's busyness, do more, activity, and you go to someone who's in trouble.

But you think activity is the way to maturity, and you go to someone in trouble, then you may be tempted to say, Well, try harder, pray more, have more faith.

It's some kind of activity, but you haven't yourself had to walk through the inward journey and go through the wall of deep discouragement and disappointment to be able to settle with somebody.

And so yesterday morning, I'm not kidding, it just happened like an epiphany.

I'm sitting in my chair early in the morning, happened to get to Job.

That's a real encouraging Saturday morning start to Job chapter 1, Job chapter 2, and I was like, I think I've been wrong about Job's friends.

Job 1 · chapter mention Job 2 · chapter mention

I've been really hard on Job's friends.

And so Job has all this calamity, worst stuff that you can imagine happens to him.

Eventually, his three friends show up.

Do you know what they do when they show up?

For seven days, well, first of all, they see him and they see his suffering is so great they're speechless.

For seven days and seven nights, they sit on the dirt with Job and his grief.

I'm like, we need some more friends who'll just sit in the dirt in the middle of the grief.

And for seven days they did it.

And then on that stinking eighth day, they opened their mouth and it all went downhill.

And they said all the wrong things to this guy.

And I'm like, they did such an amazing job for seven days.

But I think in those seven days they were made, I'm gonna say this, and I'm gonna say this, and I'm gonna point that out, and I'm gonna get them at this point.

And by the time they spoke, it was and at the end of it, God rebukes them deeply.

You spoke out of ignorance.

And I don't mean ignorant like dumb, like lack of experience, because they haven't been there.

If you haven't been to stage five yourself, you can't help lead somebody else there.

If I haven't been there, then I can't lead somebody else there.

And it's to be able to love, it's it's to be able to move from a focus on being a disciple, which we all are if we're following Christ.

We need to be growing as disciples.

But this is a move from being a disciple to being a disciple maker.

And we help other people in their journey.

And it's not just what's in this for me, it's oh man, I see what God is doing in somebody else's life, and I want to be a part of cultivating that for their benefit.

Stage six is the life of love.

And this the destination is realizing the journey isn't a physical destination.

The journey is being with Jesus and being like Jesus.

The purpose is to be like Jesus.

Look at verse 13 in John 15.

Jesus couldn't make it more clear.

He ends with verse 12 love each other as I've loved you.

Verse 13.

Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends.

Sacrificial love.

Committed love, even when you don't feel like it.

You are my friends if you do what I command.

You're my friends if you do what I command.

Jesus is just giving a model.

Like he's getting ready to go to the cross and fulfill all of these things.

Greater love has no one than this, than to lay down their life for their friends.

He's getting ready to model this on a cross.

And he's telling his disciples, I want you to do likewise.

I want to love others like I'm going to love you.

In this stage, we reflect God's love to people clearly, more clearly and consistently than we ever thought possible.

You may be here and you may be saying, I don't think I could ever get there.

I'm just not a loving person.

See, the point is when we grow and mature in the depths of the love of God, we become more loving than we ever thought possible.

We become more compassionate, more patient than we ever thought was possible because we're not on our own.

We're with Jesus and we're being made more like Jesus.

We're Christ's love, his life is a model for us of love.

Obedience comes naturally.

Have any of you ever struggled for obedience?

Yes, all of us.

But it becomes more natural because we're shaped and formed to be like Him.

We're spirit-filled in a quiet, unassuming way.

We have a detachment, a healthy detachment from material possessions.

We're not taken, and we're not afraid of pain and trauma and disappointment or even death because God has so transformed us.

And the cultural idols of a superficial happiness or comfort or security or personal preferences have been sort of surrendered, transformed in our life.

I am not a person who lives here, so I'm not trying to say that at all.

Um, and so if I were a person who lived there, then I don't know if you know this, sometimes people are really hard to love.

Anybody, you know that sometimes people are hard to love.

If you didn't know that, then you're the person who's hard to love.

If that just came as new news to you, you're like, oh my word, they are.

Um then you're the person.

Sometimes people are hard to love, and sometimes you're like, I'm like, but I'm a Christian.

I have to love them.

Oh, okay, let's go love them.

Sometimes I'm like, and you're a pastor, you have to doubly love them.

Okay, I'm gonna go love them.

When you get to the stages of a life of love, you're loving people and you don't even realize it because you don't have to make yourself do it.

You've just been transformed.

It's not intentional, it's not purposeful anymore.

It's natural, it's supernatural.

It just flows out of us because this is who we are.

We see people with a compassion we didn't even think possible.

God has has just grown us and matured us to such a place.

And so the critical journey, here's an overview.

Look at this slide.

It just looks like this.

There's six stages, there's a wall between stage four and five.

And here's what I want you to do: just pray.

God, with your wisdom, Spirit, where am I on this journey?

Can you identify like a number or the wall?

Like, where are you?

And be honest, you don't have to tell anybody.

I'm not gonna ask you to tell anybody, but here's what I really want you to think about.

Is God asking you to trust Him to move you forward to another stage?

And where would that be?

Move from here to here.

Again, there's nothing wrong with being in the first three stages.

We all will go through, and and most of us stay in those stages.

The dilemma, leave it up, please.

Don't take it down.

The dilemma is when we get stuck there and we get stuck there, but we think, I've arrived.

I'm busy for Jesus.

That's not arriving.

There's more that God wants to do.

He wants to move us through the journey inward and through the wall, to the journey outward into the life of love.

And so it's not being content to be stuck in a stage.

It's like when we were driving from Illinois to Arizona and we had this garment and a piece of paper.

You can take that slide down now.

We're just hoping it doesn't give us a wrong direction.

Our destination is supposed to be Arizona.

Can you imagine if we got to Oklahoma and we're like, that's good enough?

Close enough.

Uh my wife and kids are in Arizona, they'll figure it out.

Close enough.

No, the the destination in that moment was to get to Arizona, but can I just tell you the destination wasn't Arizona?

Because if the destination was Arizona, I would never be in California.

The journey wasn't a geography geographical location, the journey was to be with Jesus and to be close and trusting him wherever that is as we navigate this life.

And the the journey was being moved towards an inward focus on self to being able to see others as Jesus sees them and love others as Jesus loves them.

And yes, there's going to be detours, and yes, there's going to be wrong turns that by our own uh bad decisions we make, but let God reorient you, let God direct us and take us to where he would want us to be.

So I want you to just do something.

We're going to respond in prayer.

This is the end of a long series about what we believe and why it matters.

And we wanted to mark this moment in prayer.

If if if God is stirring your heart, like uniquely, specifically, and you want to grow, you feel like God is saying, I'm calling you to a new stage in your journey.

We want to be able to pray for you.

So um, we're gonna do something we don't hardly ever do here.

We're gonna pray, uh bold and courageous prayers.

If you believe God is calling you to a new stage in your journey, and you're like, it's something's been stirring, maybe not just today, or maybe today, been stirring in my heart to go with God to the next stage of the journey, to grow and trust Him more deeply.

I want you to do this.

I want to be able to pray for you.

Will you stand up wherever you are?

We don't do that a lot, but it it requires courage.

But if you just feel like God's speaking to me, I want to grow on this journey, thank you for your courage.

If you're around someone who stood up and you've and you are comfortable, would you maybe put a hand on their shoulder or just extend your hand to them saying, join me with prayers as we pray for God to move in our lives as only God can move.

God, as I look around this room, there's people of all ages in all stages of life.

I see people that are just desperately saying, Your work, your way, your will be done, God, in our lives.

And so I pray for these men, women, these girls, these boys.

For the stage of the journey they're on, that you would be near them, for the stage of the journey you're leading them into, that you would guide them.

I pray for the power to be set free from chains and addictions and sins that hold them back.

I pray that we wouldn't be limited by our earthly experience to know spiritually uh what you want to do by the power of your Holy Spirit in our lives right now.

Thank you for their boldness in standing.

And I pray, God, that you would just fill them with wisdom.

Pray that you would fill them with your love.

I pray that you would fill them with an understanding of what's the next step.

We don't always understand the whole journey, but what the next step is, give them the faith and the courage to obey whatever that is.

Whatever that is.

And they would know that love that is high and deep and wide, the love that surpasses all knowledge and the power of your spirit at work in their life, would you bless them and provide for them?

It's in your name, Jesus, we pray.

Amen.

Amen.

You can be seated.

I want to pray for one other group.

And this is you're here, and you may say, I've been focused on being a disciple, but there's something else.

And a movement for you is it's not just me being discipled and growing.

The movement piece is me becoming a disciple maker, helping others experience Jesus.

Maybe that's people who don't even know Jesus, that you're helping them understand this is the good news of the gospel.

That's called evangelism, or whether it's mentoring or whether it's discipleship, but you're on a journey with them to help them understand the good news.

And you would say, I'm being called to a movement from a disciple to a disciple maker.

You know what I mean?

From just what's in this for me to my heart is about somebody else connecting in with God in profound, profound ways.

And so if you feel like God is moving in your life, calling you to be a disciple maker, not only just a disciple, I want to ask you if you would stand and just be bold in that.

Thank you.

That God is doing something in your life that is is obvious.

It's just not about you, it's for the sake of others.

It's for the sake of others.

I'll just remind you of this.

This is not to manipulate.

Uh, Jesus said, the harvest is ripe, but the laborers are few.

So pray to the Lord of the harvest to send out workers into his harvest.

And so again, if there's somebody near you and you could put a hand on their shoulder or just extend your hands towards those, someone who is standing, let's pray.

God, we're praying for disciple makers.

We're praying that we would just get to more and more of us would get to a place where we realize that the maturity of this journey is not selfish or self-serving.

It's others focused.

It's for the sake of others.

Would you help us just to have a deep heart and passion for these men and women, young people who have stood?

God, that you would help them to know, help them to know.

You've gifted them, you've adopted them, you've called them, they may feel inadequate.

You will give them what they need in the moment that they need it.

You will equip them.

That the heart that they have right now is a heart that honors you, and and you would just open up opportunities for them to be a disciple maker.

You would bless just even the heart's desire, but then give them an opportunity, a pathway.

So, Spirit, would you guide them just so that they could see?

Uh, here's the move.

In John 15, we read about our own lives being fruitful, but but let us move to a place where seeing fruit grow on other people's trees is more exciting.

Seeing orchards be cultivated, not just our own personal fruitfulness, but that of others.

God, use their lives in beautiful ways for the sake of your kingdom.

Bless their courage and obedience in this moment and move as only you can move.

Jesus, it's in your name, we pray.

Amen.