and that the Lord really directed the steps through the emergency services today and all that. Everything went really, really well. But of course, Ms. Lois wanted the church to know and we will be praying for her. So add her to your prayer list. She's in St. Joe's currently still in emergency. She hasn't been put in a room or anything yet. So they're going through that. Then she'll be put into a room and probably monitored for a little while, but pray that The Lord will be with that situation and with Ms. Lois. She's supposed to be tuning in. She has her phone. And Ms. Lois, I was telling somebody about you the other day that, you know, here's this lady in our church and she texts us all the time and she communicates and she can't get here, but she's a part of the church remotely. And so we praise God for you. And we, of course, would be praying for you that God gives you strength and health there to get through this. Also wanted to mention, next week we will be doing setup. Tuesday night we're going to begin with setup for anniversary Sunday, so Tuesday evening, 5.30 or 6 o'clock we'll start setting the tent up. provided we do have clear weather that night. I want to get as early a jump on that as we can so we can just get things throughout the week. And then, of course, Saturday is the final details on that getting set up for Anniversary Sunday. So if you can communicate with me, let me know that you're available or that you can be there and you'll help set up for that would be great. I want to welcome Pastor Augusta's parents here. I always enjoy to see them. You know, there's some people that you just don't like, and there's other people that you just like. You know, it's just the way it is. You just like them. And I don't know what it is, but maybe it's because the first few weeks together we were working together or what, but the Lord has really knit my heart with Gus's father, and I really appreciate him. I just wish they didn't live so far away. It's just a long ride to get here, or a plane ride. But glad to see you, as always. And then, of course, good to have Bo back with us. And he had a death close to your family. So not in your family, but somebody close to your family, correct? And so they were away for the funeral on Sunday and couldn't be here Sunday. But we were praying for them. And Bo is praying for the salvation of some of those that were attending the funeral that he loved and cares for and would love to see them come to Christ. And hopefully you're holding him up in prayer for that. But glad Bo is able to be here tonight. You guys know we are in the book of 1 John. It's been a fun study for me. I've enjoyed it and hopefully you've enjoyed it. You know, it's amazing to me each week, I don't really have a plan on how far I'm going to get. I just start studying and see how things are grouped or put together in the passage. And then I do want to kind of go verse by verse so that we're just learning what the text is teaching us. And so this evening we are in 1 John chapter number two. We're gonna look at verses 12, 13, and 14. Follow along as I read those. The Bible says, and I write unto you little children because your sins are forgiven you for his namesake. I write unto you fathers because ye have known him that is from the beginning. I write unto you young men because ye have overcome the wicked one. I write unto you, little children, because ye have known the Father. I have written unto you, fathers, because ye have known him that is from the beginning. I have written unto you, young men, because ye are strong, and the word of God abideth in you, and ye have overcome the wicked one. I'm gonna preach this evening on these verses, and would have never titled it this way when I first read the text, but after digging into it and studying the title of tonight's message is The Sanctified Life. The Sanctified Life. The process of maturity as a Christian is not just growing older. It's more than that. It's more than just learning about God. It is becoming more like God. That is God's plan, and to use a biblical term, it would be sanctification. John addresses three different groups of people here. He lists the progression of sanctification in the Christian's life. He deals with all three groups, the different areas of growth that a Christian should have from the new birth to the old man. These thoughts are at the same time addressed to individuals as they are to the group at large. Now he's not leaving anybody out. He's not leaving anything to chance. He's kind of nailing each particular group down as it were. Oftentimes public speakers and preachers are criticized for repeating an address to different groups or saying the same thing different ways. You know, somebody might say, well, I want every woman here tonight to understand. And every mother here needs to understand. And every grandmother here needs to understand. And every girl needs to understand. And people are like, those are all the same people. Why do you got to list all of them, you know? You know, we're not just filling time. But the fact of the matter is, is human nature, beloved, tends to think that the message is for somebody else. That's the fact of the matter is. The human nature is for people just to always think, well, that's good, but it must be for him. It must be for her. And so John here is saying, listen, he's addressing each of these groups. He's saying the young, you know, the young men or the little children. He begins out with little children. And, you know, kids oftentimes, human nature is for them to say, well, I'm just a kid. That message is not for me. That's not something that applies to me. I'm just a kid. I'm nobody. That must be for people that are older, for people that have gotten married, or people that are out of the house, or people that are their own man or own woman as it were. That's not applicable to me. So easy to just pass it off, but then you have the young man. and the young man, of course, his life is full, and he's very busy, and surely the pastor's not preaching at me, a young man in the church. I mean, I don't have the time that the youth have to be invested in all of these things, or I don't have the means or capacity to do things that some of the older members of the congregation have. That's certainly not for me. It must be for somebody else. And the fact of the matter is, is the older members of the congregation, which I am quite aware is a large group of you tonight, but the older members of the congregation really are the worst at this because they attribute their number of years to the amount of wisdom that they have. And they think about, well, I have rode, I have hoed that row already. I've walked that road. I've put in my time. I've done my duty. I've done, you know, that certainly is not for me. But, you know, they'll sit there and they'll shake their head and say, amen. and cheer the pastor on the whole time, believing the message would be for the younger generation, those that still have energy and the capacity to go and do the work. Well, John says, hey, I'm just going to nail each one of you tonight. I'm going to start with the little children. We're going to talk about the young men, and then we're going to talk about those fathers or the older men. That's kind of how He's addressing this here, so we're gonna begin. That's our points, little children, young men, and fathers. Little children is the new Christians. He says, I write unto you, little children, because your sins are forgiven you for his namesake. And then we see it repeated in verse number 13. He says, I write unto you, little children, because ye have known the Father. A few thoughts with regards to children. We see, first of all, the energy and the excitement of youth. Boy, they're full of life and full of vitality. Can I tell you that a church needs youth? It is important that a church have the younger generation, that a church have those kids maybe a little short on wisdom, but long on energy, amen? They're ready to get in there. And sometimes, you know, I've always appreciated John. John, he's, well, he was in a sound booth, where is he now? He's out, oh, he's on security. John, I mean, he's always ready to work, always ready to get in there and do something. But John's a pretty big guy. John's pretty aggressive. He's pretty strong. And, you know, sometimes, especially when he was an intern and such, you know, we would have to. hold them back a little bit and say, okay, John, we don't want to break it. We just want to move it. You know, we just want to, we got to be careful, John. I mean, he's all about the energy and let's get it done. And we're like, well, we want to keep it, you know, when we're done with this. And, but we need that youth. The church needs the youth and the excitement that they have, the energy that they have. And I know sometimes we lose our patience with them because I raised five kids. I know you can lose patience with the young ones sometimes, but we need that energy. We need the youth that they have. And let me say this. that a church needs new births. A church that doesn't experience new births is gonna die not very long down the road. You've gotta have new life coming into the church. Baby Christians that have just come to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ that are hungry for the sincere milk of the word, that desire. Maybe they don't know everything and they don't do everything right yet, but boy, they're excited about what God's doing and I appreciate Bo. Bo's excited about learning the word of God. He emailed me this week and said, hey, Peter, can you answer this question? Well, he sent me a text and I answered him an email because text is too hard for me to try and reply. But I gave him an email back and said, yeah, I'll dive into that passage of scripture for you. He just hungry to learn the word of God. And that's the way Christians ought to be. But sometimes we've been around a long time, you know, we're not quite as hungry as we once were. And boy, these young people, they need, we need them as a church and they need the church. Newborn babes are vital and they're important. We don't need to overwhelm the young with the heavier things of the church. You know, you don't start a first grader out with calculus. And I just wanna encourage you, some of you older saints, we have somebody new to the church, maybe somebody that just got saved, and you see them carrying an NIV, And listen, I believe that we ought to use the King James Version of the Bible. I believe that this is God's Word preserved for us, the English-speaking language today, and I think it's important. You know, his second Sunday in church is not the time to go to him and say, what? That's not the Word of God. Bless God. I mean, how could you even get saved with that? You need a Bible, amen? That's not the time to beat him over the head about some of the things that, yes, they can learn, they can grow, they can know those things over time. But we've got to let them grow a little bit. You know, one of the things that's very hard, different dress standards. I was talking to somebody in the hallway here in church on Sunday, and they just commented on how most ladies here are wearing dresses. And I said, listen, that is not a requirement to come to church here. We want you to come to church and learn the Word of God and have a relationship with God. That's a personal decision that you make between you and the Lord and Savior. We're glad to have you. You come in whatever you feel best in, but we want you to be part of the church, and that's not a qualifier here. And you can even become a member of the church. That's something that you do between you and God. There's not any pressure from us in that. I want you to understand that. And we've got to be careful because otherwise we end up making our We become just like the Pharisees and our religion is all about what we do or don't do instead of the relationship that we have with Christ. And we've got to be very careful that we are pointing people to Christ and not pointing people to our laws. Newborn babes in Christ are vitally important. We gotta be careful that we give them time to grow. Boy, sometimes young babes in Christ, they might have some ignorance. They might have some things that they don't know, and it's our job to try and protect them. One of the hard things today, as a pastor, is the prevalence of false doctrine that's out there that everybody can get their hands on. You know, in my dad's day, I'm saying when my dad was my age and he was pastoring, if he led somebody to the Lord, the only place that guy had the availability to learn anything about the Word of God was in his local church. That was pretty much it. I mean, there was no other place you were going to go unless you found you got part of some book club and you might be able to order a book and have it mailed to you or something. But nowadays, readily available on the Internet is every kind of harebrained scheme and idea you can think of. And some of them sound pretty good. And it's our job to protect the young, those babes in Christ who haven't grown yet, who don't necessarily know the difference between false doctrine and true doctrine. And we got to guard them and protect them. And I worry so much about what people are consuming out there on the internet. You know, YouTube's a great source to learn how to work on your breaks. Hey, great, whatever you need to do. Just talking to Gus's parents about my four-wheeler that I need to fix. It's been broken a long time. And his wife looks at me and she says, YouTube it. I said, there you go. That's what you do today, right? You YouTube it. But I hope people aren't YouTubing their doctrine. I hope they're not getting their doctrine from there. You need doctrine not from somebody that just has a large audience or group of people, because you know what? You can get a big group of people together for anything. But are you learning the truth of the word of God? Galatians chapter one, verses six and seven says, I marvel that ye are so soon removed from him that called you into the grace of Christ into another gospel. The apostle says, hey, I marvel that you're so quickly pulled away, but why? Because there are babes in Christ, because there still need to learn about the truth. One of the big problems with the Billy Graham crusade is that they left so many babes in Christ out in the cold. There was many, many people that came to Christ through the Crusades, no doubt about that. My wife's grandparents were one of them. But they would have these big Crusades, and people would get saved there at the Crusades, and then they would say, okay, go back to the church you came from. Well, if they came from a Catholic church, the Catholic church, they'd been going there for 15 years, and they never learned how to trust Jesus as their Lord and Savior. That's not where you wanna go. They need to go to a place that's teaching the Bible, the word of God. But in those big crusades, they could never say that because then they couldn't have those big crusades. Somebody from the Franklin Graham crusades came by here, three times they've been by here, and they want us to come and participate and be part of Franklin Graham's crusades he's gonna have in this area. And I said, listen, I can't do it. And they're like, can you tell me why? And I said, yeah, because I believe come out from among them and be separate, saith the Lord." I believe the Bible teaches ecclesiastical separation. I don't think it's right for me to go hold hands with somebody that would have a transvestite on the stage and I'm going to stand with them and say, I don't agree with what he's teaching. I can't stand on the same platform with him, even for a good cause. I'll set my own platform up and we'll preach the gospel, but I can't stand there. Somebody is going to teach somebody as a way to heaven is by being a good person. That's not what the Bible says. The way to heaven is through Jesus Christ and him alone. I said, I know that's your message. You're going to tell people, but I'm not going to. I don't think it's right that we stand on the platform with a bunch of people that teach false doctrine and say, hey, we're all we're all good friends. Kumbaya. I think that's hurting the cause of Christ. He's like, oh, OK. And then he left. The next time he came back, he looked for somebody else. And he's like, is there somebody else here? Obviously, he got Pastor Derek the next time he came. And so that was even worse. But Pastor Derek talked to him for about 45 minutes. I mean, what were you trying to do, win him the Lord or what? What were you doing there? It's just sad that we gotta guard and protect the young, okay? It's what I'm trying to say. Now, I'm taking too long here, but he gives us two notable thoughts about these young. First of all, he says, remember the forgiveness that you've experienced. He's saying here is where Christian life begins. It begins with that new birth, when you were forgiven of your sin. He says, remember that, think about it. In John chapter 3 verse number 7 he says, marvel not that I say unto thee, ye must be born again. The Christian life begins with a new birth. And it's not just, doesn't just begin because you turned over a new leaf or because you started going to church or you started carrying a Bible or reading a Bible. Those are all good things, but it has to be a new birth, a place and a time when you realized you were a sinner, you put your faith and trust in Christ and repented of your sin and asked him to forgive you and to save you from your sin. And that's what Jesus Christ does, the new birth. Do you remember, beloved, what it was like when your sins were forgiven? When you were no longer guilty before God? When you are no longer standing in judgment of his wrath, no longer condemned for the sin that you knew was in your heart, what an amazing thing. He says, remember that. He says, think about it. Remember the time when you were in bondage and without sin and without hope. You know, one of the greatest defenses against Satan is remembering who you are in Christ, that you've been forgiven. Just as Nehemiah, when they came to him and asked him if he would turn tail and run, when they tried to get him to come down from the work, when they tried to get him to quit, he said, should such a man as I flee, should such a man as I flee, that would make a powerful message. Should such a man as I flee? Well, who am I? I'm saved. I'm blood-bought. I'm born again. My Lord and Savior died for me, and He allowed me to put my faith and trust in Him and Him alone. Should such a man, a man that's been forgiven, allow Satan to pull him away and tempt him to fall into this sin? Should such a man turn away from the truth of the doctrine that he's been taught? Should such a man flee from these things? No, I can't. Why? Because I've been forgiven. Because I'm saved. He's saying remember when you were saved. Remember what God did in your heart. Remember that and you'll be able to stand against Satan. You've got cause. You've got reason. You've got purpose to stand because Jesus has forgiven you of your sin. Listen, at salvation you are positionally sanctified. But we know that the process, the practical sanctification takes time. It happens over time as we have fellowship with the Father. That's the second thing that he says to remember. He says, remember, in the second statement there, that you have fellowship with the Father. What an amazing thing that our Father wants to fellowship with us. Beloved, this is something that we should and must make time for. You know, often the young are running to and fro, so busy with this and that, that they haven't time for the old. It's so important that we take time for them. But how much more important is it that we take time for the Father who wants to be with us? When it comes to the Father, we can't afford to miss it. There's no one person or thing more important to the success of the believer than fellowship with the Father. You know, beloved, there are some people that when you get around them, it's easy, let's say it's easy to laugh and have a good time. When you get around that person, it's just something about their personality, your personality, you just laugh and you have a good time with them. Nothing wrong with that. That's great. You know, there's some people when you get around them, it's easy to do wrong. You know that that's the case. You know when you're around them that you're probably going to be tempted, you're probably going to, the conversation's going to lean a little bit further away from the Lord than you would like. It's just easy to do wrong. But you know there's some other people that when you're spending time with them and you're around them, it's easy to do right. You know, beloved, that's the kind of people you need to be around. You can say, well, that person's not as much fun as this person. Yeah, but that person's gonna help you, this person's gonna hurt you. But beloved, there is nobody that'll help you more to do right than spending time around the Father, than spending time with the Father. We don't have time to look at them. You can look them up. Nine times in 1 John, he says little children, and he has a message for the little children. Two of them are found right here, but there are seven others, and we're not gonna take time. I have them here, but I'm not gonna give you time. We don't have time to look at them tonight. I want you to see the young men. We see, first of all, these little children, those are babes in Christ. Those are new Christians, young men. Those are growing Christians. He says in verse number 13, he says, This is the process of a young man that's growing in the Lord and going for God. He starts to experience some victory and starts to overcome the wicked one. Then we see again in Verse number 14, he says, This, beloved, is the natural progression of life. As long as you continue to eat and, you know, don't step off of a building, or anything like that, you're going to continue to grow physically. You take a newborn babe and you feed them the correct food and you give them a little bit of sustenance and you take care of them a little bit, they're gonna continue to grow, right? But this is a natural process that should take place in a Christian's life. It's by design, it's God's plan, but the problem is is many, many Christians get saved and then they don't ever take sustenance. They don't ever spend any time in the Word. They don't ever have some of that bread of life. They don't ever spend time doing spiritual things, and so they're not growing spiritually. They might have been saved for 10 years, but they're still a one-year-old. Because they're not growing spiritually. But God's plan, beloved, is that we would grow spiritually. This is what's supposed to happen in the Christian's life. If you continue to eat the right food, if you continue to get exposed to the light, you're going to grow. And much in the same way, beloved, that it will hinder you or stunt your growth physically if you eat the wrong foods. You take a young, you know, there's a lot of discussion the last few years, and maybe it's something that's always been in discussion, but they're always talking about the lunch menus at the schools, right? They want to have the right kind of lunch menu so that the kids are eating healthy food, and we're giving them too much junk, and we can't have them, they can't have red Kool-Aid because that destroys brain cells and whatever else. I don't know what all, but they always want, you've got to have a balanced diet. And it's important the kids are eating right, because you can stunt their growth. You can damage their teeth. You can hurt their intestines. I mean, you can't live on ice cream. Mostly you can, but that's right. I mean, I love ice cream, man. I would have ice cream every night, especially that ube. Ube ice cream, oh, it's delicious. If you don't know what that is, see Miss Lisa. She'll tell you about it. But yeah, I love ice cream, but you can't live on it. And that's the thing, the problem is a lot of Christians are living on the wrong thing, and they're stunting their growth. Oh, I'm in church on Sunday, yeah, but what are you consuming the rest of the week? What is it that's stunting your spiritual growth? On Sunday, you're just trying to clean a little bit of the junk out you put in there all week. I'm not sure, would that work? If I eat one healthy meal a week, and then I eat junk food the rest of the week, is that gonna work for me? I don't think so. I can guarantee you I wouldn't be going the direction I want to be going. That's why I buy suits with lines in them, because I just look skinnier, right? They're like, oh, did you lose weight? No, I just got a tailor. But you've got to eat the right thing. You know, beloved, you and I had nothing to do with our positional sanctification. I don't have time to really teach on that, but you understand that salvation, that's not something we had anything to do with. Jesus Christ sanctified us. He set us apart because we were God's, Christ's righteousness was imputed unto us. That was given to us at salvation. We didn't earn our salvation. There's nothing we could do to get it. That was all on Him. He positionally sanctified us, set us apart, gave us the righteousness of Christ, but our practical sanctification, that is, the life that we live from now until God calls us home is something we do have something to do with. We need to be careful what it is we're doing and how we're living. Beloved, your practical sanctification is through the grace of God working in you and you working out your own salvation. Philippians 2.12 says, wherefore, my beloved, as ye have always obeyed, not in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. This is a passage I've loved to ponder. Brother Taylor and I have had some conversations about this passage, that working out. We don't work for your salvation, but you work out your salvation. And you know, Brother Taylor, just this week as I was pondering this, an idea came to me. You know, when a child is born, a parent is putting everything they can into that child, and the child begins to grow. And then a child starts to work out who they're gonna be. As they grow older and older, when they're young, they could decide in school, you know what? I ain't going to try and learn this stuff. And they're going to graduate and be ignorant if they graduate. But they could say, you know what, I want to learn this. I'm going to learn how to spell. I'm going to learn how to write. I'm going to learn this area of study. And they may, you know, some people, they really enjoy it. They're working out who they're going to be. Some of them are given to classroom study, and they're really book smart, and that's what they do, and they go off into a field that uses their brain. Others are more like me. They use their hands. And you know what? Classroom, I do what I do to get through, but boy, give me a shovel or give me a saw and a hammer and I'm at home and ready to work. And that's what I'm gonna, they work out through their life as they're growing up where their skills are, what gifts they have, what ability that God's given them, and they work out who they're gonna be. Well, the apostle here says, work out your own salvation. God has a plan for you. He has something he wants you to do. And you need to work that out in your life. Work out who God wants you to be. and let it happen. It comes from walking with him, from being what he wants to be. But sometimes young adults are consumed with their own pursuits and they forget who they are supposed to be. They forget the excitement they once had when they were younger. I mean, you think about the youth. They're excited about any activity. It doesn't matter what it is. An activity at church? All right, let's do it. And now we get a little bit older and activity at church, oh no. Man, I don't have time for that. I got this going on, got that going on, and we kind of lose that excitement. And you need to apply this to spiritual things. I think of a child, how he openly and unashamedly shows affection for his mom and dad. They just love the idea of going out with mom and dad or being with mom and dad for anything. But you know what? As they grow older, that tends to go by the wayside a little bit. The older kids aren't as comfortable with that, showing affection. Oh, mom. What? They're losing a little bit of that desire. And we need to be sure we don't lose it. He says here a couple things to him as well. First of all, he says, remember the victory you've experienced. It's a promise of God, beloved, that you are gonna be a victorious Christian, or at least you can be. So the question is, are you experiencing victory? You see, as you begin to grow in the Lord, you learn the lies of Satan. And then you look at him and say, Satan, I'm not buying what you're selling. You start to learn and experience and know victory and you can look at that and realize that victory is yours. Can I tell you that the process of sanctification will give you assurance of your salvation? This process of sanctification is God is changing you and molding you and making you into his image. There'll be no question in your heart and mind that you are not what you were. This book, we know that we talked about the reasons that it was written. He said, these things have been written unto you that believe on the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life. He said, one of the reasons I wrote this down is so you could know. A large part of this book, and I gave them to you last week, there's 13 checks that you can know if you're saved by looking at those things. Well, one of the big things for having assurance is, are you growing? Is the process of sanctification taking place in your life? Are you a better Christian today than you were last year. Can I encourage you and tell you that it does get easier? Believers who have walked with God faithfully over a long period of time have learned how to overcome the world. They've learned how to overcome the temptations of the wicked one. He says that twice in this text. He said, you've overcome the wicked one. You've experienced that victory and you know that it's possible. Can I encourage you, beloved, that it does get easier if you're young in the Lord or young in your faith and you look at it and you say, it's so hard. It's nonstop battle. It just never quits. And I just don't know if I could keep this up for the rest of my life. It's so difficult just to do right. Can I tell you it gets easier? If you do right, it gets easier to do right. And then you keep doing right and it gets easier to do right. Can I tell you, you're gonna fight the biggest battles you're gonna fight spiritually when you're a babe in Christ. When you just come to the Lord. You look at the life of David. He fought a lion, a bear, and a giant when he was still a kid. And I have a whole message on you'll fight the biggest battles when you're young. I'm not gonna preach tonight, but I want you to know that if you'll win those battles for God, you'll get stronger, and you'll get stronger, and life will get easier to do right. Now Satan's still there, and he's still an enemy, and we have to keep our guard up, but it does get easier. Some of the older folks in here, you know, I mean, you remember the day when it was hard just to go to church? Just to go to church, like such a battle, like Satan just beats you up just to go to church. It's not hard. Never a thought. No, no, I mean, is it hard to go to church? It's just not, it's just, there's no battle there. There's no struggle there. It is for a young Christian. But when you win that victory, there's so many things like that, and I don't have time to preach on that, but, I just wanna encourage you, it does get easier. Remember the vitality, the strength that you've been given by God. He describes this strength that you have, and why do you have this strength? He tells us in the text there, there's a reason that you have this strength. Do you see what it is? You guys tell me, I wanna engage your brain. There's something in you. Huh? The word of God. The Word of God is in you. He says, you've got this strength, you've got this energy, you're gonna experience victory, you've learned how to overcome, why? Because the Word of God is in you. Beloved, strength and stability comes from knowing the Word. We've gotta know the Word, we've gotta memorize the Word. This is one of the reasons why we believe at King's Kids, it's important for the kids downstairs to learn the Word of God. As you grow as a Christian, you become more confident in the truth that you know and understand. You're not as easily turned aside. You're not as easily turned away from your faith. You become grounded in your faith, because the word of God dwells in you richly. And you're not going to be pulled away so easily. Siri. Yeah. All right, so the third one, let's move on. We're gonna wrap this up in about six minutes, I hope. Fathers, they are mature Christians. He says, I write unto you, fathers, because ye have known him that is from the beginning. Then he repeats that. I have written unto you, fathers, because ye have known him that is from the beginning. There's an interesting study, if you wanna do it, you can look into these verses and look at the difference. See, in the first one there, he says, I write unto you And then in verse number 17, he says, I have written unto you. He does that with all of those. I don't know if you caught that earlier, but you do a study and look into why those are different. And that'll be the fun little study for you. But what I want you to see, beloved, is with age comes wisdom. Life experience, beloved, is what shapes us. You know the idea what doesn't kill me will make me stronger? Yeah, some people said I'd just soon not be so strong, amen? But I guess that's why wisdom comes at great cost, because of what you've had to endure, what you've had to go through. You've learned some things through life. Older Christian. Not just older in age, I know there's a number of you here that are, you've got a few years on me anyway. But I'm not just talking about physical age, I'm talking about spiritual maturity. Could I encourage you, don't lose the virtues that you learned when you were young. Don't lose the virtues that you learned when you were young. Hold on to them. Don't retire on God. Don't stop. I mean, so many times it happens. Oh, I did that already. I put in my time. I did teach Sunday school class. I used to go to all the services. I used to do this. Sometimes we get to a certain age, and physically, especially in the evenings, driving after dark, I understand, especially with the challenge that I've had with my eyes in recent years, how, especially on this road that's not lit, how hard it can get here maybe for an evening service where it's dark out. I understand there's some limitations like that, but a lot of people use it for an excuse just to stop being what God wants them to be. They just want to take it easy now. Too many churches, instead of being filled with God's chosen, are filled with God's frozen. And that's not what we want. Beloved, it's possible that the last few years of your life could be where you make the biggest impact for God. You know you have the wisdom. You've got the years of experience to learn and to know and to do what God wants you to do. You know the longer you have an employee, the far more effective they are. When we were in college, we were taught, as in Dr. Barron's class, he always said, he's like, listen, the first year you go to a church to work, you're worthless. You cost the church more money than you're worth. The second year, you're worth about 50% of what they're paying you. The third year, you break even. The church doesn't start to actually get anything out of you until your fourth year. Because you have to learn the people, you have to learn the ministry, you have to learn the area. I mean, he sends you to the store to pick something up and you don't even know where it is. All of that stuff, you gotta learn. But the longer you're there, you learn, you know these things. Oh yeah, I know who that is. Oh yeah, I remember that person that came to church a year ago and this happened and that. And so you really start to become more and more valuable. Well, beloved, the older members of our church, I wanna tell you, your life experience, what you've endured, what you've been through makes you very valuable. Makes you very valuable to the church. What you bring is so vital, so important. And let those concluding years make the greatest impact. If anything, it should be a motivation for us to push a little harder. I remember years ago when I used to run. No, I don't run unless I have to, right? When I used to run, but we would run pretty regular. I ran three days a week for a number of years. And anyways, you're finishing up a three mile or five mile run, and you're coming in for the last quarter mile. You've been running for five miles. You've got a quarter mile left. And there's just something in you that says, you know what? I'm just going to push a little bit harder for this. It's just a quarter mile, and I'm done. Now, I wanted to quit on mile two, and on mile three, and on mile four, and then you're like, okay, it's the last one, but then now you're the last one, you're like, I wanna push a little harder. I know I'm tired, but let's just push a little bit more for that last quarter mile, and I would encourage you, maybe you're in the last quarter mile. Give it a little bit more for what you've got. Beloved, the idea here is that a long relationship of faithfulness to God, and you know him, and have a relationship with him that can only be had through a life of faithfulness to him. I think about the relationship that Mary and I have after 27 years. There's nothing else that could possibly begin to describe the depth of our relationship without that time, without having walked that life together. And only when you've walked with God for a number of years do you really start to know the depth of that relationship. The young people, those of you that have been married for a lot of years, and somebody gets married, and they walk down the aisle, and you look at them, and you say, you think you love each other right now. You don't even know. Why? Because that love grows. If your relationship is right, it grows stronger and stronger. And when you walk through life's challenges, and you experience joy together, and you experience heartache together, and you go through all those things, beloved, it's a depth of relationship that's only had from the length of time that you've walked together. And so I look at the older members, those that are described here as fathers, the mature Christians, as those that have walked with God for many, many years, and that faithfulness has developed a depth to your relationship that can't be described any other way. You've learned some things about God. You've learned how to walk with him. You've learned how God directs the steps of men, how God provides comfort in your hour of need, how God meets needs, when you don't know how it's gonna happen. You've learned how God carries you when you can't walk. You've become the wise man who built his house on the rock. You've become that disciple who continued in his word in John 8. You've become the men who've learned the power of the resurrection, Philippians 3. You've become the one that's not ashamed having known whom he believed in. That only comes with time. The mature Christians, this process of sanctification. Positionally, we're sanctified at salvation through Jesus Christ. The process of sanctification takes a life of walking with God and doing right. We start out as little children, newborn babes. Through the progression of time, we become young men, we become grounded in the Word, we become strong, we've experienced victory over some sin, we start to know how to answer men with the Word of God, the Word of God dwells in us. And as we continue, we become the stalwart pillars of the faith that have maintained that relationship for so many years, the mature Christians, the fathers. Where are you tonight? in that process of sanctification. Would you stand to your feet? Now the pianist come and play a moment of invitation. If God spoke to your heart, you come and do what God wants you to do. You can play. I mean, you don't have to wait till the song plays. If God spoke to you, you can come. The altar's open. Where are you in your sanctification? I guess, first of all, do you know for sure that you've been born again? Have you experienced a new birth? That's where the Christian life starts, at the new birth. If you have, then are you taking those steps? Are you growing? Are you getting grounded in a word? So,