Ephesians 4:1-3 // Nick Serban IV

In Ephesians 4:1-3, the message centers on living worthy of your calling. What does it mean to live worthy of your calling? Ephesians 4:1–3 points to humility, gentleness, patience, love, and unity in Christ. Rather than treating the passage as abstract theology, the sermon traces what these truths reveal about God, the gospel, and the way followers of Jesus are called to live.

The sermon applies the text to relationships and Christian community, showing that spiritual maturity becomes visible in the way we love, honor, serve, forgive, and take responsibility for one another. Biblical conviction is connected to everyday choices rather than left at the level of ideas. The result is a call to build relationships that reflect the character of Christ and strengthen the people God has placed around us.

Along the way, the message engages themes including Ephesians 4:1-3, living worthy of your calling, ephesians 4, 13 points to humility. These ideas help place the primary passage within the larger story of Scripture and show how its theology speaks to real spiritual formation. At its heart, the sermon helps answer questions such as: What does Ephesians 4:1-3 teach about living worthy of your calling? It also considers how should living worthy of your calling shape the way Christians live?

For someone studying this passage, exploring the Christian faith, or looking for practical biblical teaching, this sermon offers a clear path from the text to everyday discipleship. The invitation is to hear what Scripture says, receive it with humility, and take the next faithful step in following Jesus.

What does Ephesians 4:1-3 teach about living worthy of your calling? | How should living worthy of your calling shape the way Christians live? | How can believers apply Ephesians 4:1-3 in everyday life?

Ephesians 4:1-3, living worthy of your calling, ephesians 4, 13 points to humility, unity in christ

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  Have you guys been enjoying this series so far? For me, I just uh I am confounded, perplexed, not necessarily confused, but just in awe and wonder of how deep his love is for us and how the more and more I read his word and the more and more I spend time with with God, the more I begin to understand who he is and in turn understand who I am. And there's just something beautiful and powerful about this. Like if you're if you're struggling with identity today or knowing who you are, this is the book to read is Ephesians because again, as we've hit the first three chapters, it's all been about his heart for us. And we we talked about it last week. I'm I'm I'm going to use the whiteboard again today. I'm not going to make it a habit, I promise. But there's just something powerful about the visual of the the height, the length, the width, and the depth of his love for us. And the visualization of the cross. And one of the things that we hit last week was if we are only observers and we're just standing at the foot of the cross, there's no depth. Do you all remember me saying that last week? like it it it shook me even after the fact of recognizing how many times I've just stood and viewed God almost from a religious perspective of like oh Jesus you're awesome you know pretty much how the world sees Jesus is just standing here and we see this cross but it's only when we are hanging on the cross with him the Bible says that we crucify ourselves with Jesus that we begin to understand how deep his love goes because of the sacrif acrifice that we're making. We begin to understand the sacrifice he made for us even more. I'm going to erase this now. There's not really a a great way to do this with the microphone, but I just wanted to recap this before we read. Awesome. All right. If you have your Bibles, Ephesians 4. I was tempted to do a large portion of scripture here. Um but the Holy Spirit said no. So here's what we're going to do. We're going to read the first three verses. I therefore, this is Paul, a prisoner of the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace. Let's pray. God, would you bless this word? It's already blessed. It's already full of your presence. But God, would you illuminate it to us that our hearts would be open that you would fill this place, God, give us wisdom. Give us humility to understand in Jesus name we pray. Amen. This is God's desire for the church. Amen. like this is this is how we ought to live according to this passage. And it when we talk about coming into unity, it's not something necessarily we talk about a lot in the church. If anything, it's something that's held over our head that you oh, you should be in unity and and not actually deal with the things in our hearts, right? We have to agree or we have to come together on on everything. And and so often that just doesn't always sit right with us, right? Like there's something that's off with that. And sometimes it's off with us and sometimes it's off with others. But I want to address this today. What would a church look like that was completely humble? If every member of the church was completely humble, coming together, what would that begin to look like? like no ambition, no fighting, no division, but just coming together and and and even saying like I don't necessarily see your point, but I'm going to humble myself to try to understand. Like just try to understand. That might be the first step of humility for a lot of us. Again, I there there was a we did a teaching on empathy during the genius of Jesus book study and I love I love the uh I I I read all the comments. I probably shouldn't, but whenever there I post something on YouTube or on on Instagram, I read all the comments. So, if you want me to see you, you should comment. Um, but somebody commented the other day. I was talking about empathy and how we can understand and feel what other people are feeling. And, and this guy, you know, started fighting me. He's like, "That's not empathy. That's sympathy." Because how can I how can I understand what somebody else is feeling or experiencing unless unless I've experienced it myself? And then I look at Jesus and his life and how he chose to access supernatural empathy and understanding because he humbled himself. And we see this time and time again where he he came under the views of what other people were saying so that he could understand and empathize and feel. But so often we cut ourselves off and say, "Oh, I can't I can't understand what you're feeling because I haven't experienced that myself." and we cut ourselves off and we in turn cut people off who have different experiences than us or they've gone through difficult seasons and and and what we do is we end up isolating people and pushing people away unless they fit within our own box of understanding. And and how how is how is that the church that Paul is speaking of here that we should humble ourselves and we should be patient with one another and that we should be eager to come into unity with others when we're just saying I don't understand be gone. But what would this church look like completely humble in unity? What if every single one of us was able to move in our Godgiven gifts without feeling like we're stepping on each other? Sons and daughters fully accessing God, walking in love and true obedience and fearless of worldly consequences. Let's break this down in Ephesians 4. The first the first word there, the first words I therefore. Therefore, what is therefore? Therefore, here's what here's what it really means. When whenever Paul says therefore, he says this a lot throughout the letters, it's he's saying because of everything that I just said. And sometimes it's a really long run-on sentence. Like, let's be real. We just went through three three chapters of Ephesians over two months. And now we get to therefore. Now we get to because of everything that I've I've shared with you, everything I've taught with you, take all of that and now do this. It's a little overwhelming, right? Some of y'all, you may not have heard all the messages or maybe you haven't read all of this before, but here's what's so beautiful. For us to walk in a manner worthy of the calling like it says in verse one, we have to continue to come back to the therefore. We have to keep coming back to all of those things that God said about us. Because again, it's only from that place. It's only from that place in the heart that we can actually live this out and what's about to be said. So many times we try to live it out, but we don't have our heart right. And that's how we do damage. That's how we hurt people. And we do it in the name of the church or we do it in the name of Jesus because our hearts are not in the right place. So we can't just like we can't move on from everything that we've heard. Like for me, I like I I love doing stuff cuz now this is like I get to do all the things that I learned about. This is so cool. But many times we have to keep coming back and reminding oursel. It's like um this is going to date me a little bit. Any common core math people here in the room? That's mostly like the younger generation. Some of y'all are like, "Get common core out of here." And some of y'all have no idea what I'm talking about. But in school back in the day, I I had to learn in math the order of operations. Y'all, I'm throw it up on the screen. PEMDAS. Y'all remember this? In order to multiply, divide, add, and subtract all the numbers, there's an order in which you're supposed to go through all of these things, right? It's called pendas. Does anybody remember pendas? Thank you. All right. I'm not alone. I'm not alone. But here's what's so funny. Like, I I went through and learned the order of operations. Like, from from age six until I get to my freshman year in high school, I'm learning all of these things and understanding math and and whatnot. And then I get to my my freshman year and the teacher says, 'Okay, because of everything that you have learned now, we're going to do some trigonometry. And I'm like, whoa. Hey, stop. I What is the What are we getting into right now? Some of y'all are like, what is trigonometry? >> Yeah, thank you. It's It's nonsense. No, calculus, trigonometry. I was overwhelmed my freshman year. I'm just being vulnerable here. I had to get held back in my math because I literally got in in the first two weeks of my freshman math class. I was just like, I need to review everything all over again because we moved so quickly through all of this math over all the years and now I have to use all of it to understand what I'm about to step into. And it's kind of like what we're getting into right now. We're like, here is all of this stuff that's like fire hosed into my life and now I'm supposed to take it and start walking this out. It's like pendas, the order of operations. So, yeah, I had to move back a year. And I I love this verse in uh second Peter 3:18. This is so key for us as we get into this. It says, "But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen." Like we have to keep coming back to the truths because we are growing in knowledge. This isn't like a one-time thing where I read it, now I know it, and I am it. This just doesn't make any sense, right? We have to continue to come back to this place of understanding where our heart needs to be. And I and I I I wrote this down, too. It's not enough to say that I was just saved by grace through faith. Period. Like it's it's good to say, but does it actually change you just saying it? No. Peter says you have to grow in this grace. You have to grow in this knowledge. You have to grow in your understanding of the fullness of God coming within us. We cannot move on from the love and grace of Jesus. We grow in that understanding. We have to grow in that understanding. recognizing how much he loves us and continue to grow in that. Like it's a depth that keeps going. There's there's so much more that we can continue to grow in in our faith if we would just sit with him. If we would just continue to say, "Yes, Lord. I'm humbling myself. Your grace is so great. You you continue to move in power and speak truth into my life." And I receive it and I grow. It's not a just like I I said this prayer done period. I got fire insurance and I'm good to go. There's a growth and a progression that takes place within our faith journey. Amen. But here's the thing. Many times we can feel like we're stuck. We're stuck in in a cycle of growth. Can you see over here on the right? Okay. I'm not going to do this every week, but like I'm a very visual person and I've started like God has been speaking to me and showing me pictures of things and so I have to draw them in order to understand them. But we can learn more about ourselves and more about God and our journey in our heart. But many times we start here in this place and this is a really bad heart. That's the heart. Okay. Heart. We we get our heart right and then we we move forward in life. And this is just we'll just call this action, you know, just an arrow. Like we're moving. We're going. We're doing the things right. And and we do this thing where it's like, okay, my heart's right. And now I'm I'm I'm going to go and I'm going to do the thing, right? But then I go and do the thing and I make mistakes or I start testing the things that God has taught me. And I and I and there's trials and there's testings and I don't always get it right. Somebody say, "Amen." That you don't always get it right. Okay? you screw it up. I screw it up. Okay. So, what do we do? We go, "Okay, I got to go back and I got to get my heart right. Okay, I got to fix my heart. Maybe I need to take a few days off and I just need to I just need to have some time with me and Jesus." And it's this it's this thing. And unfortunately, it becomes this like cycle where we're just like constantly back and forth between I got to get my heart right and then I have to go do what God has called me to do, but then I screw that up or it it I I'm drained or I feel like I'm burning out and then I have to go back and like I have to get my heart right. Okay. Does anybody feel the struggle? A little bit. Okay. And it's tough and it's real. But but but so many people get burned out on Jesus and their relationship with God or they get burned out on church because again we we're doing the things but we don't feel like our heart is getting filled back to where it needs to be. Right? Amen somebody. Come on. This is good. But here's here's what's really cool too. Just for another visual thing. We talk about the journey of faith, right? And and many times we hear this idea of like sometimes you have mountaintop experiences, right? and you gain this understanding and revelation from God, right? We have these these great moments where it's like, man, I'm ascending and I'm I'm I'm up here and like God is speaking to my heart. Like I can feel my heart changing everything. But then I take what I what I learned in my heart and now I have to go into the valley. Right now I have to practice these things that I'm learning in my heart. Right? This is all connecting. Just just get ready. And then we're in the valley and we're doing the thing. And we feel like we're just doing this. We're going up a little higher and then we're going down. We're going up a little higher and then we're going down. And we see this like progressionary line of like growth. Right. Right. Here's where it gets fun. The Lord really showed me, and I'm not trying to be weird, how these things are connected and how we don't have to do this back and forth or this up and down. But what would it look like if our hearts would grow in understanding while we are doing the work that God has called us to do? What would it look like in our journey if this was something that happened in tandem versus like I'm just I'm going like God's speaking to me and I'm I'm walking it out. I'm not having to take these seasons of sabbaticals and all this which again please take a Sabbath. Please rest. But like, man, what would it look like? And here's here's what the Lord showed me. We're having these moments and we're circling and we're continuing to go again. We're having these these moments of high encounter and then we're looping and we're going and we're continuing on. This is really cool. So, I learned I learned this this last week. I drew this and then I called one of my buddies who's a Hebrew scholar and I was like, I don't know why, but I feel like there's more to this. And he said, 'Y yeah, you just drew a picture of what the Hebrews call aliyah, which is the progression of your life and growth as you continue to grow as a believer. And here's what's really cool. When you flip this imagery and you look at it straight down, here's what it looks like. Anybody into trees? When you cut a tree open, this is what it looks like. It's the rings of growth and progress. Because here's what's amazing. like I'm I'm I'm going through life and I I learned something that God has is I've experienced growth and knowledge and understanding, right? And then I start practicing it. And then maybe maybe it's months later, maybe it's years later, God like brings me back in that progression to that same moment. And now I have a new perspective on it because of the growth that's taken place in my life. Are y'all getting this? Like do do you ever have those aha moments of like, "Oh, God." I look back and I go, "That's why you taught me this. Now I can handle this new thing that I'm struggling with because of what you taught me in this other season. And now I'm growing and it's continuing to progress and I'm continuing to have these aha moments and revelation again. It's going from this this revelatory thing up here to practicing down here. And it continues to be this progressive thing. And it's no longer this up and down, up and down, up and down. It's no, I'm progressing in my understanding and knowledge of the Lord. >> This is my desire for us as a church because so many times we we we play this game where we're like, "Oh, I'm just not in a good season right now or I'm not in a good place right now in my heart." And that's okay. But we continue to progress and move forward. The problem is that when we don't address the heart, we end up spiraling. That same progression can also go backwards in our lives. And it all begins with the heart. So as we look at this, I know this is a long intro for what we're hitting, but when Paul says therefore, when Paul says therefore, he's saying look back on everything that I've shown you and taught you and remember that this is the state in which your heart needs to be moving towards. in order for you to continue to practice and progress forward in your life. Again, instead of this linear path that many of us think we're on, it's not linear. It's moving constantly through seasons, through obstacles, through difficulties, but we're always progressing forward as long as we continue to come back to our heart. Amen. I love this. Who shall ascend? Who shall progress to the hill of the Lord? Those with clean hands and a pure heart. We have to deal with the heart in these seasons in order for us to grow. And so, as we get into this, we don't want to just be doers of the word as as Paul begins to share all these things with us. We don't just do these things, but we have to hear as well within our hearts. And it's this constant progression and growth. So very quickly, if I can throw it up on the screen, Eric, I want to go through a quick recap of everything we've talked about in Ephesians 1 through3. Somebody say, "I'm ready." And my prayer is that you continue to go back to this. We continue to revisit it. God has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places. He chose us before the foundation of the world to be holy and blameless. He's predestined us for adoption. We are sons and daughters. We're redeemed by his blood. Forgiveness of sins has been given to us. There's the riches of his grace lavished on us. There's a glorious inheritance. He sealed us with the promised Holy Spirit. The immeasurable greatness of power, authority, and dominion has been bestowed upon us to do good works. We were dead in our trespasses and sins, but God being rich in mercy because of the great love he had for us made us alive together with Christ saved us. We were seated with Christ in heavenly places, reconciled to God in one body through the cross. We're fellow citizens with the saints, and we've been built on a foundation with Christ as the cornerstone. We are being built into a dwelling place for the spirit of God. There's wisdom, grace, understanding, and we can comprehend how wide, long, high, and deep the love of Christ is, which surpasses comprehension. We can be filled with the fullness of God because God is able to do exceedingly abundantly beyond what we can imagine. So therefore, live a life worthy of the call. Are we living a life that's worthy or of equal worth of these great truths? Does the love that Jesus has for you drive you crazy to the point that you begin to walk in a manner worthy of this calling? What is this calling? And I'll be honest, I'm not going to soapbox for too long, but like I I I've had some major beef with people, leaders in my life who have made calling about careers or they've made the will of God this thing that has everything has to be perfect and in alignment in order for you to step into. Like again, it we don't have linear lines in our faith walk. I've had seasons of deep discouragement because I thought that the call of God was a job title. That my purpose has to be a fulfilling job, relationship, or some kind of opportunity that God opened a door for, and I'm just sitting and I'm waiting for that perfect thing. How many of us are waiting for God to align the stars for us before we step out and do what he's called us to do? Again, I say called us to do. It's not a career. It's not a a a a a job or or a relationship or something that we step into. like we have to get we have to relearn this because what he what what Paul is beginning to say and we're going to get to in a second. It's not about any of these things. There is a call that each of us have within our inner being again to be humble to be patient to bear with one another to to to walk in unity have an urgency for unity. That is the call. And so anything else that you do, that's just something good works that God has planned for you that you get to do. But again, if we make it all about this destination, we're going to be sitting on autopilot, never actually getting where we need to go. Again, it's a falsity for us to fixate and compare ourselves or to belittle our impact because we don't have certain giftings or talents or opportunities and then again do nothing with our life because the opportunity hasn't perfectly presented itself. When we belittle our calling to a career or location, it eclipses the importance of the life that we're called to live. The life that we're called to live. That's the call. What are you living worthy of the therefore of everything that we have been told? And here's this is one of my favorite words in uh in Greek. But that word for worthy of is the Greek word axios. Axios means weighing as much as of like value or worth as much. And I have these scales here because a great picture of Axios. Everybody say Axios >> is a set of scales. You really screwed this on tight, Dad. Hold on. Okay. Oh, that's so fun. I'm going to get really distracted. They are the same weight. When the item on one side of the scale meets the standard or weight of the other side, it's called axios. That this is worth as much as that. Right? So, we could actually translate this with with the Greek axios. Want to throw that up there. says, "Lead a life that meets the standards or weighs as much as the calling to which you've been called." So before we say or do something, we should stop and say, "Is this axios? Is it worthy of the life to which God calls me?" And Axios in the Bible is mentioned many times in Philippians 1:27. It says, "Let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ. Axios Acts 26:20, repent and turn to God, performing deeds worthy of repentance. 1 Thessalonians 2:12, walk in a manner worthy of God. And this is my favorite because Jesus said it in Matthew 3:8. He said, "Bear fruit in keeping with." That in keeping with is the same word, axios. bear fruit in keeping with repentance or worthy of repentance. But here's the here's the rub. Here's here's the issue. Here's the struggle. And and this is where we need to shift our our minds and our hearts. This doesn't sound right to me because how can my life be of the same worth as the sacrifice that Jesus made for me? Just just like chew on this for a second. What life could I live that is of equal or greater value than the therefore of all of the things that God has done for me. Like if if again we talked about measurements last week, but if there is a weight in which we are to weigh in at with our life and and there is an immeasurable grace, an indescribable amount of his love, his power, the riches of his glory, all of these the access that we have, all of the things that we have read and therefore how can my life weigh stay the same as this? Like what what what can I what can I do? How many things can I do right to to measure up to this standard? And again, this is why it doesn't make any sense. And this is why so many people, they're like, I can't be perfect, so why should I even try? Why should I even shoot for this standard when I know I'm going to fall and fall and fall again? The scale of salvation has already been balanced by God's grace. None of us are worthy of God's saving work. Remember Romans 3:23, for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God. That's why this doesn't make any sense. How can Paul say this when it makes zero sense? again because there's no work that I can do to compensate or equal to the weight of my sin and all that he's done for me. Again, Paul teaches in Ephesians 2, our salvation is by grace through faith and not the result of works. Again, I I can't do enough to to measure up to what he's done for me. But here's what's so cool. God calls us to receive this salvation and receive his grace. He just says here, "But God, what did I do?" Like, how is this a transaction here? It's not a transaction. You receive it. I lavish this grace upon your life, this love, this truth, and you just receive it. But God, but what do I need to do? Right? Like we get into this mindset of like now do I need to start doing all these things like go to church you know all these times and be a part of all these meetings and read my Bible this many times each day like but show me the road map of all all that I need to do now God but an axio life an axios church to live a life worthy of the calling it's not something that we do it is a response to the gift of salvation that God has given given and that you have received by faith. It's a response that we have with our life. Somebody say response. It's how we begin to choose to live our life. And again, I'm not trying to over complicate things, but in order to live a life worthy of the call, Axios is our response to all that God has given us. Again, I cannot bear fruit in my own strength. I can't live a life that carries the weight of grace that I've been given. I've sinned. I've missed the mark. There's nothing I can do. So, I just respond. I receive. I humble myself and live a life worthy of the call, worthy of repentance, worthy of the Lord. It's responding and reflecting on the reality of salvation. And the more that I do that, the more that I align myself with him, the more I become like him. And then the things that I do, the good works that he's planned for me, it's this overflow of the life that he is changing within me. Again, we have to get out of the mindset of this being transactional and go, I do these things and I follow him in this way out of a response for his love for me. Do do we see this today? I know this is like this is deep and I'm I'm drawing squiggly lines on the board and and being really weird, but like if we can start to get this, it would change everything. And I feel like I say that a lot in this series in Ephesians. But if if if we can allow our hearts to fully receive his love and fully receive his truth, we just get to respond. We just get to respond. We just get to walk in humility. We just get to bear fruit. And it's not about checking boxes and doing all these things. That's just a byproduct of my response to him. It's our radical love for him and expression of worship and gratitude with our life that we would align with the standards of his character and bear fruit. Again, Paul spells it out for us. If we want to live this life, if we want our response to be in alignment with him, it's humility. It's gentleness, patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the spirit and the bond of peace. And this is this is the goal that Paul has in every single book of the Bible that he that he writes, every single letter that he writes to the church. It's the goal of unity and love for one another. He says it all throughout the New Testament that there would be an urgency for unity to live in unity within yourself, but more importantly to live with unity with others in the body and in the church. Again, if the spirit of God is in you, so is the desire for unity and the spirit of unity. And that's why like when you're following Jesus, sinning feels a little different because it fractures the unity within you. When you're in union with God and you begin to walk in sin, again, it breaks apart a part of you. And again, that that breaking that and the Holy Spirit shining a light on that, that's conviction. That's his kindness leading you to repentance. Amen. And so again, we have to be in union with God in ourselves, but in unity with others. Like what could be unlocked in our gatherings if all of us were of one heart? But here's here's the here's the struggle. Many times we will separate ourselves from the body of Christ because we're all different. We're all different. We all have different backgrounds, different styles, different gifts, and different viewpoints because of our experiences. No, none of us are the same. And and so to call us to unity, I'm not saying that we need to uh we do not need to be in unity with heretical views of scripture. We should rebuke and seek to redeem people who are dead wrong in their beliefs about fundamental truths. I'm going to I stand on that. But I can tell you this, just like this drawing of progression and growth and understanding, I don't believe the same way that I do 10 years ago. I haven't changed my mind about the fundamental truths. Let me clarify. But I have grown deep in my understanding of his word. And there are things that God has shown me that he hasn't shown others. And here's what's so cool. There are things that God has shown you that he has yet to show me. And that is why we come together because that's how disciplehip takes place where it's like, man, God God started speaking to me. I was reading this this chapter in in in Psalms and everything just came alive to me and I was just like, I don't think I've ever I don't remember ever reading that. Like I read the Bible so many times through, but I I don't remember that. like let's talk about it because this is awesome. And so like this is why I love like my small group right now, our genius of Jesus study. like I'm talking for, you know, 20some minutes, but then I said early on like I don't want to have discussion, but like it's turned into a discussion and God is like revealing things in other people and how we walk this out, not just in like a church context, but how do we walk out our our lifestyle with Jesus in our work, in our marriage, parenting our kids, in relationships, and friendships. And again, what what what I may know in the seasons that I've traversed may be of value to somebody else, but someone else's viewpoint and what God has shown them is is a value to me. But I can never know that if I isolate myself. If I just go, "No, this is this is my journey with the Lord. It's just it's just about me. I don't need the church. I don't need disciplehip. I've got my Bible. I've got everything I need. I've got every podcast known to man." Somebody say, "Hallelujah." Yeah. Amen. And here's what's so cool. This is this is crazy. I heard another teacher say this. You can go to a Christian bookstore, if they still have those in this area, and you can find whatever viewpoint you want to believe to back up how you feel and to back up your worldview and your point of view. And this is where it gets so crazy. There are entire denominations who are having to ignore huge swaths of of scripture in order to function in their belief. But nobody is holding them accountable. And and and for us like if if I teach something that is heretical, if I teach something that is off, guess what happens? I get emails. I get stopped because I'm held accountable just like I hold many of you accountable. And and and we can we can whine and cry and be like, "No, this hurts. Oh, it's church hurt." But often times church hurt is just people that don't want to be held accountable. >> Let's go. Again, I'm I'm growing in deeper understanding of these things and God is speaking to me in deeper and greater ways as I continue to progress. But here's the thing, like that is not to put me in a place that is higher than others. Like, like this doesn't mean like, oh, you're on this level. I'm sorry. I can't talk to you. I'm on this level. >> Oh, oh, you're in the valley right now. I'm on the mountaintop. Oh, you're getting your heart right. I'm actually doing the things that God has called me to do. Right. And again, we separate ourselves from people when God wants to use us to speak into their lives. And God wants to use them to maybe put us in our place. Because here's what's so cool. Like, it's really funny. Pride always divides. Pride divides the church. Pride divides marriages, friendships, political lines, and ideologies. You cannot have unity without humility. Pride always gets in the way. Pride always gets in the way. I cannot grow in my understanding or in character in pride. And