In Corinthians 13:10, the message centers on growing into mature love. Explore biblical maturity, love, and family relationships through Joshua and 1 Corinthians 13, learning how Christ forms healthy and whole homes. 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 follows the biblical text into practical discipleship, connecting doctrine with identity, character, and daily obedience. It challenges listeners to examine the assumptions shaping their lives and to allow the truth of Scripture to renew the way they think and respond. The emphasis is not merely on understanding the passage, but on becoming the kind of people whose lives are formed by it.
Along the way, the message engages themes including Corinthians 13:10, growing into mature love, biblical maturity, good. 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 Corinthians 13:10 teach about growing into mature love? It also considers how should growing into mature love 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 Corinthians 13:10 teach about growing into mature love? | How should growing into mature love shape the way Christians live? | How can believers apply Corinthians 13:10 in everyday life?
Corinthians 13:10, growing into mature love, biblical maturity
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We've been talking about family. We've been talking about church family and and how we're supposed to be living worthy of the gospel as a church and as a people. And whether you're a parent, a mentor, big brother, or big sister, all of us must carry the heart of God as people who are raising up other people. Amen. This is This is the calling for us. And again, so today I want to talk about prophetic family, the prophetic church. Your Your kids may be in kids ministry today. You may have children that are grown and and older. You may have people that you're mentoring in your life. You may have grandkids. You may not have biological children, but you may be a mentor. You may be again like a brother or sister and walking with other people. All of us are called to raise up and make disciples. Raise up people and make disciples, prophetically speaking into their lives. But But I want to dive into like how do we instill that into people? How do we really truly build others up? And it's one of the things It's It's one thing that's used to live set apart for God through legalism, through rules, through discipline, you know, church rules and all the things. Discipline is good. But if prophetic But what if prophetic affirmation stirs up a desire to live that way? Let me say that again. What if prophetic affirmation stirs up a desire for us to live God's way? And maybe we're missing out on that in the church. It's where we're motivated by God to see who God says we are becoming rather than following all these religious rules. And I've had many people like in my life speak prophetically into my life. I gotten prophetic words from from prophets and preachers and pastors and evangelists and all these different things and it's a thus saith the Lord like, you know, God is speaking and it's and it's moved my heart in so many ways to the core of who I am. But the people that who prophesied the most to me and really stirred up the the gift and the purposes of my life were not these people on a platform, it was my parents. It was my parents who saw who God destined me to be and began to speak to it and began to call it up. And we as as spiritual fathers and mothers here in this room, again, you may be 20-something years old, you can be a father to somebody. You can lift somebody up. You can build them You can call out who God has created them to be. In in in the in the mystical world, we say we read your scroll. Because every everyone has a scroll of their life that's been written down in heaven. And when we can have that revelatory moment and begin to speak to who God destined you to be, it it it changes you forever. Like I know for me when I've received prophetic words in the past, it's it's never this feeling of like, "Oh God, like I'm terrible." It's, "Oh God, you've called me." You see me. You desire more for me. And that's what we want to talk about today. Again, it was calling out of me. It was affirming who God already said that I am. Affirmation grows confidence. It unlocks potential and it often reveals who you were always meant to be. It's seeing in the spirit who God says that you are. And we want that. We want that for the people that we're developing. We want that for our children. We We that for our spouses. We want that for our friends. But we have to have the eyes to actually see it and look outside of our own bubble. The reason that many of us don't prophesy to others is we want a word. We want someone to prophesy for us. But what if God is calling you to have his eyes and see into the hearts of those around you and begin to prophesy and call them higher? What if that is the calling upon your life? And I know when I look at scripture, that's what the church, the first-century church, was all about. It was let's build one another up. Let's encourage the brethren, the brothers and sisters. Let's be sons and daughters. It wasn't this selfish what am I getting out of this? Why won't the Why won't the preacher prophesy to me? Prophesy to yourself. And we're going to hit that today. Again, we don't want to just be good people. We don't want our kids just to be good people. We want to We We want them to be good, but but not at the world's standards because many times a good child to the world is someone that's compliant. And and I'm not trying to build up a compliant church today. Let's go buck wild. Can we be rebels in the spirit a little bit today? Like let's be about it. Like I'm not I'm not calling you to you know to submit to me like I'm this higher you know platformed person. No, we're called higher. We're not just after compliance. We're after people who make a difference. We don't just want good people. We want godly people. Romans 12, do not conform to the patterns of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. I'm not Again, I'm not trying to change your mind so I can control your mind. I'm not trying to raise yes men and women, especially with my kids. I'm trying to raise godly people who will cause trouble for the enemy. Come on. Like does the does the devil fear you? Do the does the devil fear your kids? Cuz let me tell I'm just saying my notes, but I I've had moments where my daughter, I won't tell you which one, will begin to pray and it's like heaven opens up in those moments. There's something about raising up our children in this way that just that changes everything. Where I want I want the devil to be so afraid to mess with my house because of the pain that my children will cause hell. That should be our desire, not just for our children, but for those in our church that we're continuing to walk shoulder to shoulder with, that we wouldn't be a church that's bound in fear, but we will be full of faith today. Again, if we can get past being conformed and compliant to the world and let our minds dwell on Christ, who he says that I am, it changes everything. And we do that through prophecy. We do that through prophesying as we're mentoring and we're leading people and discipling people. Even in your business, again, like you're not many of us that that that are managers or directors or people that are overseeing other people, like we're trying to raise people to think for themselves, right? We're we're we're trying to create problem solvers, critical thinkers, people who can do things that are beyond our abilities, right? Better than us. And this is again, the essence of discipleship that we would walk with people and raise them up higher than ourselves and build them up to who God created them to be. 1 Corinthians 14 3 through 4, the one who prophesies speaks to people for their upbuilding and encouragement and consolation. The one who speaks in a tongue builds up himself, but the one who prophesies builds the church. Come on, church. Second Corinthians 13:10. For this reason I write these things while I'm away from you that when I come, I may not have to be severe in my use of the authority that the Lord has given me for building up and not for tearing down. This is kind of an interesting verse here. Because Paul's saying, "Hey, if y'all don't prophesy and build each other up, I'm going to have to bring the hammer down." It's it's kind of like a a low-key threat. He's like, I mean, it's it's not that subtle, but it is a little subtle. He's just like, "I'm going to throw I'm going to throw the hammer down. I'm going to I'm going to have to flex my authority if you don't start becoming active in your authority. If you don't start prophesying and building one another up, because again, prophecy is not to tear down. It's to build up. God's given me authority and given us authority to build one another up. Again, we're not trying to break a person's spirit, but I will say we are trying to break people's will. Hear me. I don't want to break my kids' spirit, but I do want to break their will. Cuz it's not their will, it's his will. Do we get that today? It's not my will, but it's his will. And again, we can we can interpret this in a lot of different ways, and we can get really legalistic and controlling, but that's not what this is saying here. We understand that there's going to be strong wills in people. Like I'm a I'm a strong-willed person. But there have to be levels of submission and authority and obedience, especially with our children and those that are in our care. We're breaking the will, but we're not breaking the spirit. Not my will, but your will be done. And this is exactly what Paul is getting at. Saying, "I'm going to correct you. I'm going to turn you around. I'm going to speak some things that maybe you're not going to like, but in doing so, I'm going to build you up. I'm going to break your will by prophesying God's will over your life. Because his will is better." So, again, what is prophecy? We look at the Old Testament, it's it's individuals who are told to do something or say something as an illustration to move God's people. So, you have Isaiah, Ezekiel, Zechariah, Jeremiah, all these people. And many times they were warning the people. There was divine wisdom. There was revealing of of hidden sin. It was inviting the Messiah to come and prophesying of of Jesus is coming. And there's all these like encrypted messaging messages that are that are in scripture that are even now today still being revealed. And then we go into the New Testament, and prophecy, it would be all of those things, but it would also include encouragement. It included building people up. Like like like when you look at the Old Testament prophecies, you don't see a lot of encouragement. Right? It's a lot of doom and gloom, and we're all going to die if we don't turn back to the Lord. Again, like, "Hey, you're going to die. You're going to be in slavery if you don't turn away from these wicked things." And in the New Testament, we can help people understand that truth. Hey, if you don't turn from this wickedness, you're going to be in hell. But we also do it in a way that speaks to their future. So, it's not damning people and saying, "You're doomed." It's saying, "Hey, God has a plan for your life, and I can see it, and it's good. And the things that you're engaging with right now, it is not the pathway that God has for you. Let me walk with you. Let me speak to Let me Let me speak to that deeper place within you. Again, we're calling things forth, even though they may not exist yet, we're calling them to what they can be, what they should be. Amen? This is prophetic. This is prophecy, speaking in this way. So, again, many times, you know, we see these we hear these revelatory words from prophets and men and women of God and all these things, and it's and it's beautiful and it's powerful, but so much of it, at the core, is to encourage and lift people up. There can be warnings, and there can be pushback, but it should always call people back to Jesus, not to a place of condemnation, not to a place of guilt. It should bring us and encourage us to get closer to the Lord. This is the essence of prophecy, that every believer who believes in Jesus and and been sealed by a spirit has the ability to participate in this practice. We can all prophesy. We can all speak life and encourage and lift people up. In the New Testament, prophecy, you can look at the life of someone sitting next to you, and you can prophesy. You can do that right now in this room. You can look at this person, and in the spirit, in love, in care, begin to speak to who God created them to be. You can speak the truth of scripture over them and begin to call them higher, because scripture can do so much more than my words can. Again, you're speaking to the spirit man within somebody, and you're lifting them up. You know, if you're looking to marry somebody, and you're single, you can tell them, "God told me to marry you." Actually, don't do that. I'm just kidding. It's a bad joke. Yeah, is that what happened to you? Oh. >> [laughter] >> Oh man. No, it's a red flag. I was just trying to make a joke there cuz you guys look really intense right now. Are you ready to grow prophetically today, church? >> Yes. >> And mentoring people and discipling people. The first thing, write this down. Prophesy to yourself. Prophesy to yourself. 1 Peter 2:9-10, but you you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light. Once you were not a people, but now you are God's people. Once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. Can you remember a moment in your life where you didn't have mercy? When you were walking away from the Lord, you were doing your own thing, and then God called you back home. And you remember the moment when it when it's like to not follow Jesus. When you used to chase all kinds of stuff and and and it wouldn't satisfy you, no matter how much you pursued it. You used to chase highs and lovers and money and stuff, and it never measured up. And then you found mercy. Or I should say, and then mercy found you. Grace found you. And you realize that these things are more precious than rubies and gold. Many of us, we struggle parenting, mentoring, discipling prophetically because we don't believe these things about ourselves. We don't we don't believe that we're a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation that we are His possession. And so, we struggle to build others up because we're not building ourselves up. Pain, divorce, bad parents, not being raised with with God in your life, sin, habitual sin, hidden sin, just the feeling of unworthiness. And many of us, we don't prophesy to ourselves because we live under a perpetual state of condemnation. It's this ongoing feeling of I'm failing in my faith. I'm not good enough. I'm not measuring up. And we don't fully understand that the word of God has been given to us to remind us that we are special. That we're called out. That we are His. We don't always believe that God is for us and that nothing can stand against us. Even though that's the truth of God's word. And so, it's hard for us to lead others prophetically because we again, we don't fully believe this for ourselves. And fully believe that God is speaking these things over us. It's stinking thinking, right? We have to renew our minds and and change the way that we think about and approach our life. And if we don't, we're going to miss out on the calling that God has for us to walk in this prophetic gifting. So, ask yourself this. Who are you? What do you believe about yourself? What is What is your identity rooted in, truly? Is my identity rooted in Christ alone? Is the same power that conquered for grave is it Is it dwelling within me? What is my identity built on? Because again, church, everything in this life, everything in this world, it will crumble except for Christ and his church. The church of Jesus Christ and the word of God has lasted for thousands of years. Empires and kingdoms have come and gone, but the word of God has lasted through all of it. He is still the king on the throne today. The gospel of the good news and the freedom in Christ, it still exists today. And if we're not rooted in this, it's hard to lead prophetically. Because we live our lives and our faith with a defeated mindset. It's funny because I I I've I've met with people before in this church and outside this church and and they're just going through all their story of just all of the negative things that that they're that they're struggling with and then when I point to the one good thing that they said and go, "But isn't God good? This happened." And they just can't accept it. Like when God actually moves in your life, when success and growth happens, we're like shocked. Because we expect bad things to happen. We expect, you know, "Oh yeah, you know, I love Jesus, but I don't know if he loves me today. I'm not going to get my hopes up about this. This good thing can't last forever." And we have these wounds of defeat or these feelings in our soul of being let down and disappointed. How long can I really keep following Jesus like this? Is there really more? And again, it's this mentality that many of us we won't say out loud. It's the quiet part that we don't say out loud. But we can think, I'm not good enough to keep this up. Can I really live this way? And what we need to do is prophesy to ourselves. Again, because you can you can wait or you can jump around to all these other churches and movements and you can find the prophet in the the the guy that'll throw the jacket at you and you fall out in the spirit. Like you can you can go and chase after all of those things or you can get into the word of God and begin to speak over yourself. And it's not again, it's not positive affirmation. Like you know when you say like, I'm handsome. I'm beautiful. Looking in the mirror in the morning. Am I the only one that does that? Okay. All right. That's not what this is. It's taking the truth of God's word and beginning to speak to our spirit and say, THIS IS WHO YOU ARE. THIS IS WHO I AM. And we need to get focused on this more and more and begin to walk in who Jesus created us to be. And stop waiting for somebody else to tell us these things. We have the word of God. Again, it's lasted all this time. It's for us to walk in. We need to declare and repeat constantly that I am fearfully and wonderfully made. Declare, I didn't choose God, God chose me. CHURCH, GOD CHOSE YOU TODAY. I'm greatly loved. Declare, I have a heavenly father who knows me and he loves me and I'm appointed for such a time as this. I exist to bear fruit that will remain. God knows me. He knows every hair on my head. Not mine, but you know. I am not condemned. Abundance in Christ is possible for me and those that I love. I am the head and not the tail. I am a son and a daughter of the king. I have access to all that I need. I've been promised peace. Heaven is my destiny. There are promises in the word of God that we need to stand on, declare, and repeat over ourselves, or we will walk and live a life of perpetually unspoken defeat. And I rebuke that spirit of defeat in Jesus name today. I rebuke the anxiety, the fear, and depression that's frozen us. It has to go in Jesus name in order for you to be who Jesus saved you to be. For you to parent prophetically, disciple prophetically, you need to start by prophesying to yourself. Just reminding yourself who you are. I think I've shared this story before, but I just love it so much. Y'all know that y'all seen The Lion King? Ooh, great movie. We're talking about Disney in church. Hold on. Watch out. There's There's Simba, you know, he's out in the jungle with Timon and and Pumbaa, you know, Hakuna Matata, you know, no worries, all the things. And then Nala like comes and and finds him and, you know, he's trying to let him know like, "Hey, it's some bad stuff's happening back at Pride Rock." And, you know, Scar is doing all this crazy stuff, you know, obviously your dad died and all the things. But you're a king. You're supposed to be the king. And then that crazy monkey, I forget what was his name, Rafiki, Rafiki, like like like come comes out and finds him, you know, they they sing Hakuna Matata, you know, the whole the whole deal. Brings him out to this pool of water and and Simba looks into the water. And then this voice comes out of nowhere saying, "Remember who you are." Remember who you are. And I know again, Disney and church, I know y'all are going to kill me. Send me Send me all the emails. I won't read them. It's great. But do you remember and know that you are a royal son and daughter? We're children of God. We're heirs to the throne. God sent his only son for you. Just for you. And he would do it again just for you. And this is a truth that we need to continue to hold fast to. That we're not just sitting in this doom and gloom suffering faith. I'm all about some suffering though. Suffering makes me better. But when we can remember who we are, that we are kings and queens in Christ, it changes everything for us. But we do that by going into the word of God and prophesying over ourselves. Reminding ourselves like this is like the pool of water that Simba looked into. Just stare into this and be reminded of who you are, church. Prophesy to yourself. Secondly, raise up people uniquely. There's a difference between treating children different and raising them weird. There's a difference. We all know some weird Christians, right? I'm one of them. Yep. But honestly, like like we are a peculiar people. We We do live our lives Sorry, I couldn't look at you when I said that. We have to be different as a church. We can't be so heavenly minded that we're no earthly good, right? And so we have to be culturally aware and conscious because we definitely aren't fitting in to the society as a church. Because we're different. We're not living the same as the rest of the world. Proverbs 22:6, "Train up a child on the way that he should go, and when he's old, he will not depart from it." It's very simple, right? It's simply said, not necessarily simply done. So, how do we do this uniquely? Christ, firstly, Christ must be king. He must be first next to the family unit. We've got to have value of the home and family and then the church. Christ, family, church. The church is God's idea and it and we know it helps disciple people. And there are things that our children's workers that they're doing right now, again, they're not babysitting back there with your kids. They're they're sowing into them. They're they're teaching them the word of God. But I'll tell you this, many of the things that they're being taught would be much more effective if they were demonstrated in your home. And so that's on us. Secondly, we're raising them to their purpose. Not for a purpose, to their purpose. We're seeking God on their behalf. We're praying through. We're helping them experiment with their purpose and their unique characteristics and giftings within that purpose. We're discovering those things. Like my kids are very, very different. Allie, she's very spiritually sensitive. Like every time that I pray, she cries. And it's just the Holy Spirit. But she's got a mama bear attitude. Like she's always trying to protect her siblings. Like sometimes probably too much. JBQ team can attest to that. Zoe, she is strong-willed. She loves fiercely and demands attention when she speaks. And when she feels unloved, she will throw a grenade and walk away. She's my warrior princess, man. She's awesome. Nicky is very creative. He's passionate about everything that he does. But he can get easily distracted by fun things. He loves when I coach him in golf, but he gets frustrated when he doesn't get it right the first time. And Levi, brother, he's full of emotion. Positive and negative. He loves to build and he loves to make things. His imagination is fascinating compared to my other kids. He loves with his whole heart and he's always trying to include others, but when he's left left out, it's devastating. So again, there's godly purposes to their uniqueness. And I can correct the things that are wrong and I purpose to mold the things that are right. And And a great example of this in the church, you can find it in Galatians 2 and Acts 16 and and 1 Corinthians 9. I'll I'll I'm going to hit all of this cuz it's one big story that's really really cool. But Paul is with the church leaders in Galatians 2 in Jerusalem and they tell them that they're not going to require Timothy, who's a Gentile, to be circumcised, which was a Jewish practice. They didn't require Timothy to be circumcised. I'm sorry, Titus. I messed that up. Titus. In Acts 16, Paul arranged for Timothy to be circumcised. There's Titus and Timothy. They're both like disciples and apostles under Paul. Cuz everybody knew that Timothy's father was Greek, that he was a Gentile. But Paul trusted Timothy and he saw a different potential in him than he did in Titus. Not saying that one is better than the other, but he but he was so focused in on the uniqueness of who each of them were that he helped mold them to be the effective leaders that they needed to be. He knew that Timothy would minister to both the Gentiles and the Jews, whereas Titus would reach the Gentiles. 1 Corinthians 9, he shares this whole passage uh in from 19 to 21 where he's saying, you know, I want to reach as many people as possible. So, I'm going to be all things to all people. If I if if I need to go and and be a part of these Jewish practices in order to reach the Jews, I'm going to do that. If I need to go and be a part of these these Gentile gatherings, like I'm going to do that in order to reach them. Whatever it takes to reach them, I'm going to make that happen. And then I love this in Philippians 2:19, he says, I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon that I also may be cheered when I receive news about you. I have no one else like him. I love that. I have no one else like him who will show genuine concern for your welfare. So, the way that Paul saw Timothy was different than the way he saw Titus. And that's okay. In our kingdom culture, we cannot treat every single person the same. Cuz we're all created unique in Christ. In fact, we're hurting people when we try to fit everyone into the same formula all the time. Because God made you unique with a unique purpose and a unique destiny and it's not going to look the same as your brother or your sister in Christ. Again, when we don't lead people uniquely to who God made them, instead of empowering them, we end up enabling them. Enabling them. We're basically allowing them to continue bad behavior because they're different. And this method produces individuals who don't think critically for themselves. They repeat dangerous behaviors limiting their potential. And honestly, we we we usually end up enabling people because we've got our own issues to deal with. Or we're too tired. Or we're too lazy. Or we're too distracted. But when we disciple prophetically and raise people uniquely, we're called to empower them. Empowerment is is power given to someone to do something. It produces a stronger character and a moral fortitude. You have to empower and not enable. It's saying, "I see what's unique about you and it's not an excuse to live your way." It's a beautiful invitation into God's unique plan for you. Empowerment, again, produces capable people. It leads to unwrapping personal calling. You find out what moves people and even what their purpose is when you empower them to make their own mistakes and to overcome them with them. So again, if you want to disciple prophetically, prophesy to yourself, choose to raise people up uniquely, and number three, see beyond their present. It's natural to look at people and be disappointed or frustrated by their decisions, their incompetence, their attitudes, or their actions. And we can just discard people. Like, you're not getting it, so you're not going to roll with me. But when you see currently in the natural when you when you're parenting or discipling, ask yourself, "What kind of eyes are you seeing those people with?" Jesus seems to always look at the potential in people and call it forth. When he's with the disciples, when he's with the woman at the well, when he's with Nicodemus, the woman that was caught in adultery, the thief on the cross, God sees your potential. He sees beyond your present circumstances. Cuz what if God left you the way that you were? What if God left you in your sin? I can't work with this. What if God left you in your mess? What if God left you in your abuse and your pain? Church, God saw potential in you and that's why he chose you. He saw someone that could serve him. He saw someone who could have a healthy marriage, relationships, children, could keep a job and do good. God saw that in you. And he didn't stop until you got to a certain point. And he's And he's not going to stop as you continue to progress further. Like like this this gets to be a little fiery and mad. I was at the golf course yesterday with my boys. Nicky's Nicky's six, striping the ball like a like a stud. Levi Levi's four. He He hit it like 20 yards yesterday. So, that was like hooray. All right, you hit the ball. Praise the Lord, you know. He can barely lift the club up over his head. Um but next to us when we got to the range was I think it was a brother and sister. Um teenagers. And uh It was It was so weird cuz we're walking up and I just hear this screaming. The The The The brother was just yelling loudly at his sister. Like, "You're terrible! WHY ARE YOU SWINGING THIS WAY? WHAT ARE YOU DO WHAT WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?" LIKE JUST just berating her over and over again. And And it got to a point where like every time she'd hit the ball, he'd be like, "Well, it's not terrible, but it's not good." And we just constantly, over and over again. And it got to the point where my boys were like stopping and just looking and staring. We're working on that. Like, "Hey, don't stare." But I just I'd tell them like, "Hey, focus on your game. Focus on your game. Don't worry about them. You focus on your game, right?" But I was so like just moved in the moment and I and I and you can call it holy and righteous anger, but I was about to like bust some heads in the moment. And I start to like kind of bow up and like turn over to him. And then out of the corner of my eye, I could see this man sitting behind them just laughing, smirking. And then the kid like called him dad. And I was just like, "Wow. You're going to let your son tear down your daughter like that?" Like, I can understand like not being a natural golfer or a natural athlete. But why couldn't you just coach her for where where she is? And begin to lead her into getting better. Cuz I'm I'm sitting there, my son barely gets the ball out of the tee box. I'm like, "Bro, that was awesome. You went forward." We have to coach people and see beyond their present. This is really powerful, but there's in John chapter 9, there was a young man that was born blind. Jesus sees, spits in the dirt, and turns it into mud, covers his eyes, says, "Hey, go wash yourself at the pool." And he does it, and his obedience to Jesus is what healed him in that moment. And this is a really great example to us today, especially if you have people and kids in your life that you struggle with. Because here's what happened after the story. The disciples came to Jesus, and they're like, "Why was he born blind? Who sinned? Whose fault is this? Since birth, he was born blind. Like, Jesus, who's at fault here? Like, why do they suck AT GOLF? WHY CAN'T THEY JUST GET IT? WHOSE fault is this? And Jesus claps back quick and he's like, "Nobody. It's no one's fault. This happens so that the glory of God could be displayed through this family." Church, sometimes those difficult people, those difficult children that you're raising, God has allowed these challenges so that the maximum glory could be fulfilled through you. Through your testimony. Through your children. Even if God doesn't come through the way that you thought that he would, it's to glorify him. So, don't lose hope when you're discipling and developing people who are not the same as everybody else, see beyond their present. Lastly, and I'll invite the worship team. >> [snorts] >> Number four. Speak towards their future. Second Timothy 4:5. Again, this is Paul speaking to Timothy. He says, "But you, keep your head in all situations. Endure hardship, do the work of an evangelist, discharge all the duties of your ministry." Paul is is speaking prophetically to Timothy's ministry and life. His future. Hey, walk in this way. Be faithful in this. He also writes in in many other areas in first and second Timothy. He says, "Don't neglect your spiritual gift. Fan it into flame. Have power, love, and a sound mind. Keep a close watch on your life and persevere for your faith." Paul is speaking and clearly defining the future for Timothy. He's warning, he's correcting, he's blessing, he's reminding, he's speaking definitively to the future of Timothy. And I tell my kids this often, God has massive plans for your life. The enemy is after you because of who you are in Christ. There's purpose for you. When I pray for my kids every single night, I pray that my children will be mighty men of God and mighty women of God for God. That they would bear the fruit and gifts of the Spirit. And then I'll pray specifically for their future. Like I I'll be honest, like I don't want them to be a ministry unless God wants them to be a ministry. I'm not putting that on them,
