FOLLOW ME - Week 2

Hey, Go Church Family! Welcome back to week two of our podcast for our September series

called Follow Me. My name is Gilbert and I'm here with Pastor Matt Haddabow. Good afternoon,

morning, evening. I don't know what time it is when you're listening to this, but

greetings. And we're also here with Joseph. Hello, Go Church Family. Welcome, Joseph.

Welcome, Joseph. We're getting used to having him around. I think we want to keep him. Yes.

Yeah, I'm excited. Joseph, thank you so much for being with us and thank you so much for really

leading us through the series for this month. You know, this is something that we've been saying

for a couple of weeks, but this is a subject that's in your heart and we're excited for it to come

out and bless the whole of Go Church. This is something necessary. In your heart and demonstrated

in your life. Yeah, thank you. It's my pleasure. I've been enjoying this a lot. It's fun, right?

Being on the podcast so much. I encourage people to do it. Praise God. If you'd like to be on the

podcast, visit the Next Steps banner on our next big Sunday. You don't even have to wait till then.

You can reach out to us on social media, on social platforms. You can reach out to us through your

Grow Group leaders. And the reason for that is because this is Go Church Beirut and Go Church is

your place to love, to grow and to go. And we're excited for everyone to experience God's unconditional

love and grow in His love and then go with His love to the rest of the world. And Joseph is going

with his love on the podcast. So we love it. Well, enough of follow Go Church on social media.

Let's talk about follow me. Yes. Yeah, right. This is the series for the month. This is the title

of the series for the month. It's a series about discipleship, about walking with the Lord and

coming closer to Him. So what our purpose is for this month is that I go church Beirut. We want to

ensure that everyone understands that following Jesus is not just gaining biblical knowledge or

being part of a teaching, but it's a lifetime journey of discipleship through every shared

experience. And how Joseph had described it, and we mentioned this, is discipleship is a

transformative journey. And it's a journey that each and every single believer is on. Once they

say yes to Jesus, I will follow you. This week, we're focusing on the second part. So our key

scripture involves what Jesus said to Simon and Andrew when he called them and he invited them to

be disciples. He said, follow me and I will make you fishers of men. And really, we're looking at

what Jesus said there. And there's a lot of a lot of light and a lot of a lot of truth that we can

see and pick out from. And this is what we did. So in week one, we talked about follow me. We talked

about what it looks like to say yes to the call of follow me. We talked about what it really means

to be a disciple. And we saw that in the example of who Jesus called in Mark chapter three, verse

14, we saw that in the illustration in loop chapter 10, where there's the interaction and the

exchange between Mary and Martha and Jesus. And we even discussed this in our grow groups from the

illustration of the dynamics between Elijah and Elisha. We really emphasize the call to a relationship

and the call to be in a relationship. And this week, I'm very much looking forward to this because

I just find it like such a great topic to talk about and to emphasize in ourselves. And that is

the part where Jesus says, I will make you. And I really like the way that is worded in the passion

translation actually, because he says this, he says, come and follow me, and I will transform you into

men who catch people for God. I like that word transform. Because it's it really helps you see

it in a different light or in a different angle. He says, I will transform you. So I will take who

you are now. And I'm going to help that change and that mold and that, you know, look completely

different to what it looked like before, so that you can look like me. So yeah, that word change is

so key when we talk about discipleship. And you know, you you had made a comment last week in the

podcast about how different if you take a snapshot of your life three years ago versus today, how

different those pictures look. And you might be listening to this and say, Well, I would love for

that to happen to me. The way to get there is to do something today that is following Jesus, one of

the best ways to do that is to get involved in our reading plan. You know, we've shared in our

WhatsApp groups, and also in the grow groups about the reading plan. If you haven't done that yet,

it's not too late. You can you can get that and that's something that you can do today. And if you

do that again tomorrow, and the next day and the next day, and make a commitment to yourself and to

God, I'm going to do that for five days. Now, you won't see massive changes in five days, but you'll

notice a change. And if the thing is, if you do consistently spiritual things, you'll become a

spiritual strong person. If you follow Jesus today in your decisions, and then do it again tomorrow,

and then do it again tomorrow, he will lead you into the place that he has called you to be.

I love Pastor Matt, how you're making this practical into like simple steps. And those simple

steps, they lead into that place of growth, they lead into that place where I'm positioning myself

intentionally to change, you know, to be that disciple. So these are important things that I

can do in my life, daily, you know, this maybe it's so simple for me that I'm reading a scripture,

or a verse, or even I'm hearing someone from the Goat Church family sharing a reflection that might

change like a great thing in my life, I'll have a new perspective or a revelation that will impact

my life. So that's, that's amazing. This gets me thinking about something I did in the month of July.

So a friend and I, we decided we're going to do a push up challenge, you know, and we said no matter

what, every single day, we're going to do 50 push ups, and we're going to add a couple of things

like some bicep curls and some whatever whatever is and just different stuff. But we said, you know,

every single day, the whole month we're gonna do 50 push ups. I know that for many people, it doesn't

sound like much. But if you're not doing them consistently, you're not, I think it sounds like

much. But if you're if you're not doing that, you know, consistently, and, and then you start doing a

little bit consistently, you realize that at the end of the 30 days, that's 1500 push ups more than

what I would have done, you know, on an average month. So, so these things build up like if you if

you realize that, you know, your little habits and your little decisions that you stick to, I mean,

I remember that there were some nights I'd be in bed at like midnight, like, I didn't do my push ups

today, I'd get out of bed and like, Seattle, my wife is already asleep. And I'm like, quietly

doing push ups in the room. If I could if I could apply that kind of discipline to, you know, to

what I know that the Lord would want me to do or want me to change or want me to move forward in

my life, where would I be spiritually? And I think that's very, very important. And which is really

what we want. And kind of the aim of growing together in grow groups is the accountability part.

So you do a challenge with someone like that. Then you have someone to hold you accountable. And in

grow groups, we can do these things together. We don't have to do them by ourselves and we can grow

together. Yeah. So I want to ask you, Joseph, a question, you know, when Jesus said, I will make

you, what is he trying to make me into? What is he trying to change? Well, basically, he wants to

shape me into that person that he sees me. And I always love to see it that way that I am being

changed and transformed to the same image that he is, because he is the great example that I can look

to and be like. That's really good. I mean, you made some notes about the fact that he wants to shape

us in so many areas of our lives, right? And sometimes it seems like, what does this matter

if you're trying to get me to do this other thing over here, right? But you notice that

all of these things matter to God, because if you want to change something on the outside,

you got to start with something on the inside. If I want to do the 50 pushups on the outside,

the most difficult part of those 50 pushups a day was the mental game of like, I'm going to do them

no matter what I feel like, you know, and so something on the inside needs to click before,

you know, something on the outside really starts taking shape or taking form. And you mentioned that,

you know, he wants to change our mentality, our character, you know, he wants to change things

about our faith walk as well. And the gifts and talents that he put in us, he wants to mold them

and develop them. And even our purpose or our vision, or our understanding of our purpose,

he wants to change that. Yeah, I love the way that you mentioned the pushups and the way that you

are going towards that. So right now, if I ask Gilbert, could you lift like 500 pounds or 1000

pounds or whatever that is more than your capacity and capability? What would you say? No, he would

probably say he doesn't know what pounds are because those are freedom. Yeah, so lifting

high weight. How many liters is that 200 kilos. Yeah, so let's say 200 kilos. If I want to weight

200 kilos, and my body doesn't allow me to do so, what I need to do is that I want to build that body

that I can achieve that in the future. My aim is to lift 200 kilos. But my body doesn't lift it yet.

So what I need to do is that I need to work on my body so I am able to do so. So this is like maybe

a simple illustration of how Jesus works in our lives. Jesus sees our future and he knows what

he wants us to do. But for us to go there and do whatever we need to do, there's a process

of shaping, you know, shape our minds, how we think, shape our characters, how we conceive things,

how we look to things. You know, I could be a person that I am grumpy all the time, or I'm

tiki, I get angry so quick, or I'm emotional, or I laugh all the time, you know, it's not

all the negative things. Is that not driven by temperature? So like in summer I tend to, you

know, heat up a little bit. But really, this is a good illustration because the important

point here is if you're going to follow Jesus and he's going to make us into something, that

starts where we are, not where we want to be. And Joseph, we could talk a little bit about your

story about how you had a very early on, you had a vision for God using you in ministry,

but that's not where you started. Yeah. So when I first started following Jesus, getting

to be introduced to Jesus, I had that calling inside of me that I want to serve him, that

feeling that I want to serve him, do whatever he called me to do, you know, go talk about him,

preach the gospel, reaching out to the nations. And then I started having in me that one day I'm

going to do that, one day I'm going to be in full-time ministry, and the Lord has brought that in

words. He confirmed that I saw dreams and all of that. For me seeing that I got so excited and I

want to do it right now. For me like it was, I want to do it right now. And I started taking

actions towards that which I failed. And then I wondered why I felt like, am I doing something

wrong? But then I realized that there is a time of preparation. There is a time where I need

to put myself in a place where certain things need to change in me, you know, to grow, to gain

knowledge, to gain experience, to gain growth. And that happened with me through life experiences,

which I succeeded a lot of times, which I failed a lot of times. I learned from my failures and I

learned from the things that I was successful in. So after I can say maybe 12 years and 13 years

right now, I'm kind of stepping into what God called me to serve Him in full-time.

And you're just getting started?

Yeah, and not just that, I can say that I'm also learning and I'm also being trained and

discipled in a place where I can do that. You know, I am positioned into a position of discipleship.

And I remember these words that I'm not gonna forget all of my life when

Pastor Matt Beamer told me, we were sitting together, he told me, like, looking into the future,

what would you do? I said, man, I would go into the nations and preach the gospel.

And he started talking about a process and then I started joining in into this

things that we are doing. And I was like, wow, I didn't know that. I'm learning this and that.

How do I develop in that? I'm failing in this. But you know, success and discipleship is,

I can say this, discipleship is successful with you. And you are growing whenever you are looking

to people has done something and succeeded and you start being like them, imitate, imitate them

in what they are doing. You know, this is how I grow is that I look to Gilbert and I see Jesus

inside of him. I look to Pastor Matt and I see Jesus inside of him. And right now this is my first

podcast. And right now I'm doing it, you know, first of many, yeah, first of many, for sure.

Next time I'm going to do better. Next time I'm going to learn more. But you know, the point

here, and we can see this in 1 Timothy. Okay. With when Jesus saw Peter, he says, come, follow me,

there's purpose in that. Right. But the things that Peter did initially, some of the things he

did were actually wrong. So some of the things that he did were very natural. And it wasn't,

it didn't look like the things that Peter would eventually do. Yeah. But they prepared him for

it. And that was that process of making in and Gilbert, you know, you made some notes here,

1 Timothy chapter three, and 2 Timothy chapter two, talks about shaping. If you read these,

you can kind of get the, you can kind of get what you said about, well, I can't lift 200 kilos today.

Paul tells Timothy, here's some qualifications for being used by God in his service. And none of them

are be a charismatic speaker. Yeah, they're all like, live right, have a good character. It's

all character, right? How you order your daily life. And you can read that and get the idea of

kind of like the same thing, I can't lift 200 kilos. Well, start with 20. Yeah, exactly. And

you know, start where you are and start making changes. Yeah. Yeah. So I want to, I want to

read this verse in 1 Timothy chapter three, verse 10. So actually, throughout 1 Timothy,

chapter three, versus one through to 13, it's really, you know, Paul is really talking about

the character requirements to be in a position of service, you know, obviously the position of

service requires, you know, there are certain functions that are required, there are certain

things that need to happen, you know, there are natural things, spiritual things, all sorts of

things. He's talking to elders and he's also talking to deacons, you know, deacons are effectively

servers, people who help in natural things a lot of the time. And verse 10, he says,

each of them must be found trustworthy according to these standards of character,

before they are given the responsibility to minister as servant leaders without blame.

And, you know, it just gets me thinking, you know, if we think of another illustration,

no one wants to be in a car driving, you know, around, let's say a Formula One track at like

300 kilometers per hour on bad tires with no brakes. Like you want to make sure that every

component is ready to go, it can withstand the elements, right? withstand that level of temperature,

withstand that level of performance required, that level of braking capacity required,

you don't want to hit a wall. What a great illustration. And you know, what got it ready

was not time on the track, what got it ready was time on the lift with people that knew what they

were doing. Yeah, that's right. That's awesome. You know, I kind of want to hit on something here,

because, you know, we're talking about follow Jesus, follow Jesus. I heard one, I heard this person

say once, they said, I follow Jesus, I don't follow, I don't follow people. That sounds really good.

Right? I mean, I think that that sounds amazing. In fact, people are flawed. People can maybe say

maybe say the wrong things mean the wrong things. It sounds good, except it's not scriptural.

Yeah. First Corinthians, first Corinthians, chapter 11, Paul told the church in Corinth,

1 Corinthians 11 · chapter mention

he said, be followers of me, even as I also follow Christ. So Paul sets a measure there.

He says, you measure, measure me up against Christ. I'm not the measure. Christ is the measure.

But you follow me as I'm following him. This idea that, well, I'm going to separate myself

from people, and I'm just going to follow Jesus directly. Like I said, it sounds good.

But it is not biblical because Jesus, when he ascended, Ephesians says that he set gifts in the

church, and those gifts are set in the church for a purpose. The purpose is the, like the Formula

1 car that's up on the lift. The purpose is to, you know, pull this hub assembly off your car, guy

Joseph, to dig around in there and change, make changes and components to increase performance.

There are gifts that have been set by Jesus in the church, and those gifts or those offices

are occupied by people. And to, to follow Jesus, we need to follow and respect the authority that

he has set in the church. This isn't about, like, being subservient to someone or, you know, being

some, you know, kissing rings or wearing funny hats. I'm not talking about that. I'm talking about

respecting that God has put gifts and he has empowered gifts by the Holy Spirit in the church

to mature us, to bring us up into the place that he's called us. That making happens in the church.

This making into a disciple. It doesn't happen just, you know, off on a mountaintop, off by yourself.

It happens in the community of the local church, and that's the purpose of the church.

Yeah, that's really good. You know, that's actually what Joseph put down in these notes. You know,

if we ask, how does God make us, you know, I'm going back to the key scripture point, but like,

how does he transform us? How does he change us? You know, what, what Joseph said and correctly,

and this is something we'll talk about in our girl groups, but, you know, he changes us through his

word and he changes us through the church that he put us in. It's so important. I do, I do, I do

want to say one other thing because we refer to 2 Timothy. And I think that's an important point of

discussion to note, especially during girl groups is that, so, so let me, let me read this out,

actually, let me read the scripture. 2 Timothy chapter 2, verses 20 and 21 says this. So this is,

2 Timothy 2:20

again, Paul speaking to Timothy as a leader in the church, in a wealthy home, some utensils are made

of gold and silver and some are made of wooden clay. The expensive utensils are used for special

occasions and the cheap ones are for everyday use. If you keep yourself pure, you will be a

special utensil for honorable use. Your life will be clean and you will be ready for the master to

use you for every good work. So what I, what I am trying to say in this point of discussion,

or, you know, I'm trying to tilt the discussion a little bit is to say that we have a saying

in Jesus making us something. We have a say in the change and it is our own responsibility to

keep ourselves pure. This is, this is where the illustration of the formula one car breaks down

because we're not just sitting on a lift. We are actively involved in the change. We're actively

involved in the transformation and we have to allow God to do that in us and for us so that we can

go further. Yeah, there was a pastor made a comment to me once. He said, he said, God can do the greatest

things in people that put themselves in a position where their pastor can touch their life deeply.

And that's such a rich statement. Can you repeat that, please? God can do such great things

in people who put themselves in a position where their pastor can touch their life deeply.

And we, the context of that conversation was I had met someone from their church and I just,

I made a comment back to their pastor. I said, this, you know, this person has grown up in your

church. They are an amazing representative of Jesus. And so I was, I was complimenting the

pastor and he made that comment. I'll never forget it. You know, we are talking about church and I

remember this comment also came from a preacher. It's he was saying, you are so perfect and you

are so great when you are alone in your room. But the thing is that if I need to change, I need to

be around people. A lot of times I'm seeing positive in people and I want to imitate that. I want to

be that. And that is so biblical. Thank you for sharing that. That I want to be that successful

person that I am seeing in front of me. I want to imitate the good things. But a lot of times also

there's the challenges that come that changes me, you know, that rock hitting the rock on each other

and it's going to have the same surface. Like, how am I going to know that I have a temper if I'm

sitting in a room alone? And how am I going to know I need to work on my temper if nothing is like

scrubbing on me? Like when proverb says that iron sharpens iron, right? So I'm walking next to

Gilbert and we hit shoulders together like I have this thing inside of me like, oh my god. Is it

before after my 50 push up challenge? No, before after. I'm going to say I'm sorry. No, it's so

good. And I actually you said that you heard a minister say that I was here in Lebanon. It was in

2015. No, sorry. It was in 2016. And I was visiting a church, a Lebanese church, there was a gathering

of youth. Maybe there were eight people there. One of the one of the guys that was there was 16 years

old. He had given his life to Jesus in the pastor's home three or four days ago. Three or four days

before this. So we're all sitting and they had asked me to share a Bible lesson. And so I finished

teaching and I'm done. We're all finished. Everyone's sitting around having coffee, eating,

you know, the meeting's over. This kid 16 year old kid, he said, you know, I think I understand

what church is for. I said, Yeah, what's that? He said, if I'm by myself, I don't see anything wrong

with me. He said, but when I'm around other people that are following Jesus, I see things I need to

change. I'm like, wow. That's amazing. Please, please, you know, write that down for me. It was, it

was, it was so good. It was such pure wisdom. And it was an honest assessment where you realize

what you just said, you're sitting in a room by yourself. Everything's fine. But when you get out

and you get in elements and you get rubbed up against other people, that's where you realize,

there are things about me that need to change. And if you still think that there are things

about other people that need to change, rewind what I just said, because I'm talking to you.

So let me, let me recap this. And this is, I'm going back to the points that Joseph really put

down. The way that God transforms us or changes us in this case is through his word, you know,

the scripture talks about the washing of the word, how that makes us pure. And also through his church,

because once we come into that position, we see our place, we see what we're meant to be,

and we see what we're supposed to look like. And then we see the deficiency, right? So going back

to the body, you know, when, you know, if a bicep is not on an arm, sorry, I'm using a lot of these

illustrations for some reason today, but if it's not on an arm, it looks fine. But if it's on a body

builder's arm, and it's like my bicep, it's like, this looks way too small. It needs to grow now.

You know what I mean? And with the growth comes the strength. But I do want to, for the sake of

time, I do want to move on and introduce the Bible illustration that we want to talk about

this month in our grow groups. And I want to go back to that, what we were talking about last week

about Peter and the change in Peter. And I think it's a great discussion point, because we see that,

we see him in our key scripture, right? We see that Jesus called him and he said,

specifically to Peter and his brother Andrew, follow me, I will make you fishers of men.

And we see that at that point in time, they're called disciples, you know, when Jesus, you know,

they follow Jesus, they're with Jesus the whole time through, they see him go up and ascend to heaven.

And, and then, you know, they get told, what are you doing staring at the clouds? Go, go, go,

do what he told you to do. And you think, oh, that's it, they haven't made, they figured everything

out, they have what they, that's not true. Like, as they go, there is still room for change, room

for discipleship, room for growth, and room for a change of mind, the change of character, a change

of heart, you know, a change of vision, a change of purpose, understanding of your purpose. And we

see those things in Peter. So the example we want to talk about is throughout the book of

Acts, in chapter 10, we see this, this situation, because up until that point in time, you know,

the church consists of Jewish people. So like in the Old Testament, the people of God were the

Jewish people. And in the, and as we move into the New Testament, we see that they understand,

you know, the doctrine of grace, they understand righteousness, they understand that it's no longer

my works, it's no longer the law that makes me right with God, it is what Jesus did. They believe

in Jesus. So they, they walk into this new covenant through Jesus. But the nations, you know, the rest

of the people groups, that wasn't open to them at that point in time. That wasn't something that was

seen as acceptable to the Jews at that point in time. They thought that Jesus was for them.

For the Jews alone. And, you know, this is something that we see from in Galatians in chapter 2

that Peter struggled with, because even, even Paul had to correct him at that point in time and say,

you know, when the Jews come and the Jewish leaders come, you're, you're moving away from

non-Jews and, you know, you're only sticking to these kind of people. And that's wrong, you know.

So we know that, you know, he had this, this point, like this sticking point or this struggle,

but at this point in time, in Acts chapter 10, you know, Peter is just on the roof of the house

Acts 10 · chapter mention

waiting for a meal to be cooked. And at this point, you know, he falls into a trance and he has a

vision and God gives him a vision. And what the Lord does is he shows him, you know, all kinds of

animals that were not permitted to be eaten according to Jewish law. And he says, you know,

rise and eat, right? I mean, I'm paraphrasing here. This is not exactly the words. And

Peter responds, no, Lord, imagine God gives you a vision, you know, you're sitting there.

You know, God's telling you something and you say, no, Lord, I've never eaten unclean animals.

Not only does it happen once, but it has to happen three times for him to understand this point.

So it took, it took a vision from God. It took God saying this to him three times, you know,

to, for him to digest the fact that something's changing and something in my mind needs to change

here so that I can get to the next step. And, you know, in that time, the Lord is orchestrating

steps to have Peter go visit the house of Cornelius. Cornelius was a Roman centurion.

And he was a believer in God, but he wasn't in covenant with God. And the Lord was trying to

get him to hear the message of salvation through Jesus so that he could bring him in.

And until that point, there were actually no non-Jews. So this is probably bad English, but

there, there were no Gentiles. There were no people outside of the Jewish community who had

believed in Jesus and who had received salvation through Jesus. And if the Lord never showed

these things to Peter, Peter could have never digested that in his mind that I need to change

because I need to give them that message and they need to receive this thing that God's trying to get

to them. So I'm just sharing this illustration and it is worth before getting to the girl group,

read through Acts chapter 10, pick these things out, see them for yourselves, understand that

Acts 10 · chapter mention

from Peter's perspective, there were blocking points and there were things that needed to change

for him to get to that next level. Well, and as you read it, I mean, you did a brilliant job of

explaining it and explaining the context to make this practical for us. You can apply the same

thing to any of our cultural habits. You know, it's, it's amazing to think about, but there are

still some people that are prejudiced against other groups. There are people that they think,

oh, you belong to this group of people or you're from this area or you were raised in this way.

That means, and then they apply this like blanket thing. And the Bible here, this message to Peter

is very clear. Don't call unclean what I have cleaned. That's so big. Because the Bible says

that Christ died for the ungodly. So if you think of some group of people and you think,

they're very bad, great, they qualify. They qualify for the cleansing blood of Jesus and the love of

God. And you know what I love about Peter? It is the process of maturity that he went with the Lord.

As we were speaking in the podcast that go look to the life of Peter, just study it.

If you read about the Gentiles, basically they were people, they rejected God. And for Peter,

like you can see that, oh, I'm not going to do that. I'm gonna, I'm not going to touch the unclean,

which it was in their culture. But in a place, Peter rejected God, rejected him three times.

And Jesus had, he rejected Jesus. And then Jesus had to tell him, do you love me? Go take care of my

sheep, feed my sheep and do that. And he was in a place where he experienced this kind of things,

where, okay, this guy has rejected you, this guy has killed your people. And now I have to go to

him. You know, it was that process of the adjustment that he needed to do inside of him. And it was

a process of maturity that I believe that everyone needs to do. Before I'm looking to another person,

I need to look at myself and what I have been going through and what I have been forgiven of

and what I have done, that I had to be like what got me here in the first place. So that is something

that also I need to look in that I need to mature. And the things that I'm seeing in the life of others,

you know, I need to grow in those things. I am responsible for my own growth and my own

change, change of mentality, change of like how I see things, how I see people. But people play a big part in that. So I need to be more open.

So I can give a quick example in my life about how the Lord needed me to make changes in my ways and my character. And these are small things. Like, you know, before I really understood these things, I'd be very loose with my words. Like, I will probably, you know, swear a lot more than I did now.

But, you know, there's just silly things I would say. And the fact is, you know, the requirement for change in my attitude or requirement for a change in my character came far before me sitting on a podcast speaking the word of God and the word of life.

And this is something that he needed me to change so that I could be sitting here. You know, I couldn't be very loose with my words and then handle something with the same mouth that is so precious as the word of God.

And that is something that, you know, we can see in all of our lives if we look close enough that he had to make changes in us before we got to that point where he could use us in that area.

And you know, the good thing that, the good thing I see in this illustration with Peter and going to Cornelius' houses, that to go there, there was a purpose and it was a great purpose. And you see what Paul did.

And you see what Jesus did with Paul. But the purpose of Peter that he had to make certain adjustments before he goes there, but he was going into a purpose. God doesn't do anything on earth without a purpose.

You know, it's just like the story was not made just to write it in the Bible, but it teaches us a great lesson. So in a very short time, Peter had to do that adjustment.

He had to do that work inside of him, you know, of growth and the ways that he was thinking to go to serve that purpose.

Praise God. Well, we're, I wouldn't say we're out of time, but we're actually over time. But I'm looking forward to seeing everyone.

This is such a good discussion and it's practical. You know, what we're talking about here is you want to see change in your life. This is how you do it.

That's right. And part of it is putting yourself in that position. One of the things, Joseph, I just love that you said, putting yourself in that position of a disciple.

Yeah. Not something that, oh, it happened to me in the past. I've made all these changes. No, no. I'm looking today. What are the things that I need to change today?

And there's, there are always things, right? I mean, there are things that I'm looking forward that the Lord corrects me and he keeps correcting me.

You know, and that's something that I want because I know that by doing that, I can in the future see him using me more.

Yes. And that's something to look forward to, right? So a change now means results later.

And, and do you know, it's, it's good. If you think about it, it's good. I'm becoming a better version of me and who God wants me to be.

So that's right.

Well, if no one told you, we love you and we're praying for you. God bless you.

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