Spiritual Maturity

Thank you, Tom, and good morning again to everyone. I certainly am happy to be here, and I wanted to give you more of an update. I know I mentioned a little bit in the announcements about the conference that we attended. There were about 40-45 people there, and whenever we're able to get together and been able to spend time together, been able to discuss things, been able to learn things about the condition of the world and where we are and how we're trying to do the job, it's always encouraging to do that. I know it seems like these regional conferences come around so infrequently that you don't keep up. You're not able to easily keep up on everything.

But I wanted to go back and read to you again what I read there in the announcements.

It gives a summary of what it is that we covered. The theme of the conference was creating an environment for growth, and the ministry was instructed in creating a godly church environment and how to make the church more engaging. Those were two of the areas of discussion that we had. Other topics include alcoholism and addiction, pornography, answering common doctrinal challenges, and then current trends.

I would have to say, as you think about those topics, you might wonder, well, what do those have to do with the church? What do they have to do with us? I know, I would say, after listening to the information that was provided, you could say that it was uplifting and encouraging, but also in some ways sobering. Sobering and in some ways disturbing. To see the trends that are so common in the world today, and then how they can affect the people of God.

Now, we might think, well, surely some of the social problems that the world suffers from, they don't affect us. Well, we don't want to be ignorant of Satan's devices. We find that in, I believe, it's in Corinthians. We don't want to be ignorant of the things that go on in society that almost become commonplace in society, and we think that that wouldn't have any effect on us, or even the temptation of those things would have no effect on us. Certainly dealing with the topic of alcohol, our congregation, or not our congregation, but our whole church culture, views alcohol differently than many do. You know, and if people avoid alcohol altogether, then you generally don't end up having any kind of problem with alcohol. And yet, if you think alcohol is okay to use, it could be misused. It could be, and could become, a problem that, and certainly, you know, if Satan sees a weakness in us, well then he's going to exaggerate that. He's going to try to confuse. And also with the whole topic of, say, pornography, you think, well, surely we don't have members or ministers that are involved in pornography. Well, you know, the societal record shows there are a lot of people who see that as nothing wrong with it. It's just fine.

And clearly, you know, we want to be aware of that and steer clear of that, understanding what the Word of God says, and understanding even, you know, that again, the temptation of our own nature is very possible, that, you know, those things could become a problem. So to be alert to that, and to be, you know, we live in a different world than we did, I would say, certainly 20 years ago, you know, go back to 95. These last 20 years have not been major progress. You know, they've been major decline in the function and way that people view their lives, the way they view God, the way they view... and, you know, I see a biblical illiteracy that is... it's appalling. People who contact us and want to discuss this or that, you know, very rarely do you talk to someone who's biblically literate, which is... that's a real benefit. That's a real blessing for anyone to come to the Church of God with some knowledge. I mean, even if it's from a Protestant or Catholic Church, that's a biblical... you know, they know something about the Bible. They have an awareness. Perhaps they didn't understand it correctly, but at least you have an awareness. And clearly, you know, that's the case. I said we have a different world than we did 20 years ago, and I would say that this last 20 years things certainly have accelerated. But clearly, 50 years ago, which is when many of you were coming into the Church of God, when God was... God the Father was calling you to Jesus Christ. He was drawing you to be a part of the body of Jesus Christ.

You know, the world today is far different, and of course, Satan's assault on society and on the people of God is expanding, and it is relentless. You know, he isn't letting up.

He's going to continue to pressure the world and cause great distress and confusion, and he's going to continue. He's not going to let up on us, although we can guard against that, and we should be guarding against that, but we also need to have support and help and encouragement and love from one another to be able to do that. We have, as Mr. Jackson mentioned, the power of God. We currently have the power from God to be successful. There's no doubt about that.

We're going to be given a great deal of power to be able to rule in the world to come, but we have power today to rule our own spirit, and we have power to be able to overcome and to be conquerors, and that's what we're told to do. Ultimately, that almost comes down to being an individual, conquering my own brain and my own heart. That's critical. That is what I have got to have God's help to be able to do, and I think we can say that would apply to all of us.

So, how can we be on guard against the destructive invisible forces of evil that are continually bombarding society? And I think this would be a good description of what we should do as a church and as a congregation here, but as a church in general. How can we be more spiritually mature and engaging? How can we do that? What are the things that we could keep in mind to be able to be more engaging and be more able to help, able to assist anyone that God may bring to a recognition of their need for Him? See, we want people to come to know about the work of the Church of God. We want people to know about the Kingdom of God. We want them to embrace that. But we also want to be able to encourage and assist them and not impede that in any way. And I think this ultimately comes down to should we not simply be allowing Christ to live in us? See, whenever Paul said, I'm crucified with Christ, nevertheless I live, yet not I, but Christ lives in me.

See, ultimately that should be my focus. That should be my prayer. I would hope that it would be your prayer, that Christ would live in me. And of course that has a great deal of meaning, a great deal of significance, and we may not focus on it all the time, but we need to certainly know that that's exactly what we are shooting for.

I've kind of broken this down into three different sections, and I'll see how much I can cover today. I hope I'll be able to cover much of it, because it is just giving you kind of an overview of a conference that we attended, the ministry attended, for two and a half days. And yet I can't of course cover all of the information, and there's maybe no reason to go over all of the information, but certainly the main points need to be passed on to the congregations.

First of all, you know, we're in the process, and this was mentioned in connection with not only our lectures, the public lectures that we're planning to have in October, but also even in the Kingdom of God seminars that we've had, and that we haven't seen a lot of fruit from, or a lot of additional people. But it's not that we don't want to do that anymore. You know, it may be that we yet need to do that. We may need to look at, you know, what are the things that we could do to make that even better? How is it that we could approach that? I'd like for us to look in Ephesians chapter 4, because this was kind of a, this was a, in a sense, kind of a base for what it was that we as a church are to be doing.

You know, we're going to be reaching out to this world with God's message of hope and purpose for human life. That's what we're going to be reaching out with. You know, whenever we have a program, a lecture that involves America, the time is now. You know, we're not just telling them it's 2015. You know, we're telling them the time is now to see what God is doing, to see what his purpose is, and to have purpose and meaning, and therefore having hope in your lives.

Here in Ephesians chapter 4, you know, this is describing the type of unity and the type of power that is enabling, it enables us to do our job. It says in verse 1, I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling of which you've been called. See, Paul was telling the people in Ephesus, people where he had lived for several years during his, I believe it was his third journey.

He lived in Ephesus. It was kind of his base of operation. He was familiar with the congregation. He was familiar with the, you know, many of the people. He could name many of them. He says, I, as a prisoner of the Lord, which he was in Rome at this time and imprisoned, I beg you to lead a life worthy of the calling to which you've been called.

See, that's our, that's our admonition. We're all to be living lives that reflect an understanding of God's calling with all humility and with gentleness and with patience, forbearing with one another in love. See, none of us are perfect. All of us have failings. All of us need help. We all need encouragement. And one of the instructions bearing with one another in love is the type of outlook and the type of caring that we want to have for one another.

It says in verse three, making every effort to maintain what? You know, we struggled with this several years ago when we had a division. You know, here it tells us, and this is directly to, you know, the Church of God and to people who should already know the value and importance of the family of God in the unity and the camaraderie and the closeness that are between the Father and the Son. It says, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. He wants us, God of course wants us, to be united.

He wants us to be bearing with one another. And he goes ahead and talks about one body and one spirit and one calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all who is above all and through all and in all.

See, we've been brought into a relationship with our Creator. What an incredible privilege to have an awareness of what God's purpose for me is. That's a delightful thing to think about. I'm not going to read the entirety of this, but if we drop down to verse 11, it says, the gifts that He gave were that some would be apostles and some prophets and some evangelists and some pastors and teachers. And so He structured the body in such a way that verse 12 can be achieved to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for the work of serving not only one another, but reaching out with a message of hope and serving others with the preaching of the gospel in that way, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ. And so we want to be building each other up. And until all of us come to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, till we all come to maturity, to the measure of the full stature of Jesus Christ.

We're not there yet. We haven't fully achieved that. You know, that is, in essence, marching orders. That is direction to tell us that, well, we want to grow spiritually. We want to mature spiritually. We want to grow in the fruit and in the character of God's Spirit. He mentions verse 14, not being children who are born to and fro.

But in verse 15 it says, Speaking the Truth in Love.

Speaking the Truth in Love, we must grow up in every way unto him who is the head into Jesus Christ. Till all of us should acknowledge, we recognize, that, well, the United Church of God is a relatively small group. We desire to proclaim the gospel of the kingdom of God. We desire to nurture the brethren so that we are spiritually growing. See, and whether we increase it all in size, that's not really the issue. That's not the most... if God allowed that or if God caused that, that would be fine. But more importantly, how about seeing the need for all of us to grow up to be like Jesus Christ? Because he is the head of the church. He's the one that we are to look to and to be guided toward from whom, he says in verse 16, the whole body joined in it together by every ligament with which it is equipped, as each part is properly working, promoting the body's growth in building itself up in love. See, that's a basis for the type of growth, the type of maturity, the type of what you could say, I guess, if you were to say, how is the church to be more engaging? If we have a lecture, if we have people come, how should we be more engaging? Well, we should be spiritually attractive. You know, we should display the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

We should demonstrate the concern and love of God. And I'm not saying that we haven't been trying to do this, but you know, this is clearly the foundation. This is clearly the basis for us being able to do our job. And of course, others should be able to see Jesus Christ living in us. We have a desire to build godly relationships that are based on love. We don't want to be impeding others or offending others in some way unnecessarily. We might unknowingly or ignorantly do that at times because we clearly are just people. But we want to try to avoid that.

And we're not trying to come up with some false way of interacting with people. That's not the case.

One thing that stood out, and we can look at this in 1 Corinthians 3, is that I would say over the course of our two days of meetings, and there were numerous speakers, and primarily I went back just to see what it is that Mr. Kubik, who serves as the President for the United Church of God, and Mr. Holiday, who works with ministerial and member services, you know, they were the primary ones that we were, you know, having these training sessions with.

Literally, it was over a dozen times that it was referenced that we fully believe that God is the one who has to call and draw people to the Church, and that He's the one who provides the increase. Now, that should never be overlooked because that is really the focus of our prayers, and it should be a basis for our actions. Here in 1 Corinthians 3, Paul emphasizes this because he was stating to the people in Corinth that, well, you're not as united as you should be, and whenever, you know, you're divided, whenever you're pulling apart, then you're not allowing God, you know, to create the increase like He can. Here in verse 1, Bradbury and I could not speak to you as spiritual people, but rather people of the flesh, as infants in Christ. He said, I fed you with milk and not with solid food, for you were not ready for solid food. But even now, you're still not ready, for you are still carnal, you are still of the flesh, for as long as there is jealousy and quarreling among you, are you not of the flesh and behaving according to human inclination? To hear, he's clearly showing them that, well, you know, that's a part of what we've been given the power from God to be able to overcome. You know, he says you haven't achieved that yet, but that's still what you need to do. He goes on to say, for when one says in verse 4 that I belong to Paul and another says I belong to Apollos, are you not simply carnal? Are you not merely human? Who, then, is Apollos? What is Paul?

Apollos and Paul, he mentioned Peter earlier. They are simply servants through whom you came to believe, as the Lord is signed to each and I have planted. Paul was saying I began the church here in Corinth. I, you know, was used by God because, if we read back the 18 months that Paul spent in Corinth, he was told by God, I want you to stay here 18 months. I want you to preach the Gospel. I want you to explain about the Kingdom of God. I want you to proclaim Jesus as the Messiah. Why? Because I have much people here in this city. Now, that may not have seemed like a likely city because it was somewhat of a licentious city and somewhat of a, you know, you would think a pretty compromised area. But if God is going to call or draw people, well then, He's the one who's able to do that. Paul says, I planted, verse 6, Apollos watered, but God is the one who gives the growth. God is the one who causes an increase. And, of course, an increase could be in some new person or member, but an increase or growth can be in each of us, as we overcome and as we grow. So he goes ahead to say, verse 7, either the one who plants and the one who waters is anything but only God who gives the growth. That's where we want to continue to be focused. We want to continue to be asking for God's blessing and guidance. The one who plants and the one who waters have a common purpose, and each will receive wages according to the labor of each, for we are God's servants working together.

You are God's field. You are God's building. He was wanting the people in Corinth to understand, you've been placed in a body. You've been placed in a position where God can help you grow.

And, again, to go back to verse 6, I just want to point this out. It's very clear that God is the one who provides the increase. But we must do the work of sowing and watering and cultivating, even as we reach out. The methods of doing that are different today than they were back when the primary way that we were reaching the United States, at least, and perhaps the world, was through radio.

You know, most of us were familiar with that because, you know, we recall, and I recall even as God brought me into the church, I recall listening to the radio, listening to the radio on the wheat field, sitting out in the truck, trying to get anything that would come in on the staticky old radio that was in a clunky old truck, where I was waiting for, you know, wheat to be cut and then dumped into the truck for me to take it to the granary. You know, that was how it was that the message was going out then. You know, the message can go out today in a lot of different ways, not only through radio, which we do use a little in certain areas, but through television, through the internet, and even through, you know, like we mentioned, campaigns or lectures that we're trying to make a message known. We're trying to make that available. But the methods that we use may vary some. We're still trying to achieve the same goal. So we don't want to overlook our part to reaching out to this dying world. And so that's the first thing I just wanted to mention, is we reach out with a message of hope, a message of explaining to people what the purpose of human life is. You know, we want to be spiritually vibrant. We want to be spiritually growing.

And, you know, there are certain things, you know, that we can be aware of in this regard. The second thing I want to mention, and this was, this was in a sense, so glaring whenever we had a discussion of, well, what are the current trends that we see in society? And as we even see these affecting us in the church. Well, these trends are alarming. I want to go to 2 Timothy chapter 3, because this should be, this tells us exactly, 2 Timothy chapter 3. Of course, Paul was writing this at the very end of his life, at the end of his ministry. He knew, as he says in this book, that I'm going to die pretty soon. But here he even gives a prediction of what will things be like in the end of the age. 2 Timothy 3 verse 1, you must understand this, that in the last days, distressing times are going to come. People will be lovers of themselves. See, are we in this time today? I think, you know, if we look around us, we'll see that we're in this time today more than we've ever been. We might have thought, any time in the past, well, yeah, that's the way the world is. That's the way the people are. But I can tell you, it's much more that way today.

People are lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy, inhuman, implacable, slanderers, profligates, brutes, haters of good. And when I looked up that description, it said, people who are hostile to virtue.

That's really a description of the world today. People who are becoming more and more alarmingly hostile to anything that is good and upright and wholesome.

Haters of good, treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure, rather than lovers of God, holding the outward form of godliness but denying its power.

See, that's a description that God inspired Paul to write down at the end of his life in the mid-60s of the first century after Jesus had come. God predicted that this world would be the way it is today. He knows what's going on on earth. He understands the human beings that he has created. He understands the deceptive power of the being who is the god of this world. And so he can clearly say, what will people be like? Well, whenever we were discussing in an hour or so that we took to discuss trends, well, what trends do you see in society? And does this affect the church at all?

Well, certainly we see a disrespect for authority. You know, an undermining of teachers. Teachers are, you know, often in trouble trying to manage a group of kids. Certainly, even now, the police are under attack. You know, they can't just simply do a job trying to protect the public.

You know, admittedly, they may not always do it exactly like they should, but they, you know, overall, you know, are providing a certain security that is clearly needed in society today. You could say, you know, there's a disrespect for authority in families, in parents, with children, toward their parents. You could say, as far as the church, even toward the ministry. Neil, there's not the type of respect that you would anticipate. Obviously, the morals of this country, and particularly we're thinking simply of this country, but it's around the world. You know, morals are in decline. Marriage is undermined. Homosexuality is promoted.

It virtually will affect the minds of people to where it's the norm.

Unless we're on guard against that. Of course, abortion is commonplace. It is spoken about in unspeakable terms. I mean, you can hardly listen to television and radio anymore for some of the garish things that are going to be presented about, you know, any of these topics. And, of course, an undermining of masculinity and femininity. You know, that's all kind of blended together. And you have, you know, people in a very confused state. And, of course, all of us should be able to see why Satan would love to do that. Because God is creating a divine family. He is creating a setting for people to live for all eternity. People who will have been turned into spirit beings and be a part of His divine family. But if Satan can undermine people's understanding of the family or of marriage or of even respect and love within that setting, see, if he can corrupt that, you know, then he surely will. You see in society today, certainly an independence.

Everybody is their own authority. And no one can tell me what to do. You know, you see this pretty brazenly on TV. You go out and talk to people. You know, many of the ones, at least I see, you couldn't tell them anything. They don't want to know anything. They only want to know what I have to say, what they have to say. There is certainly a casual indifference. You know, there's clearly a kind of a setting of dressing down. Whenever we come to church, we're to, you know, we're to understand our need, you know, to appear before God. That's what we're doing. And, you know, that is something that breaks down more and more in society. People who go to congregations probably everywhere throughout Fulton, you know, I would say their setting is different. I mean, it's certainly different than it would have been, you know, 20 years ago or 30 years ago. But see, you know, it's a manner of these trends just continue. And I think you find that people are difficult to motivate. You know, they don't see any urgency in doing anything. You know, you find an effect of drug use and misuse and alcohol misuse, even in a greater proportion than I think what we've seen in the past. And, of course, there's very little personal responsibility. People don't want to feel responsible. Even though they are, they don't want to feel responsible or take responsibility. Here in Matthew 24, I know as I listened to many of these trends being discussed, and as we could think about how it is that these trends are so, in many ways, they're just terrible because it makes life much more difficult.

But in Matthew 24, Jesus describing the end of the age, verse 9 says, they'll hinge you over to be tortured and put to death, and you'll be hated by all nations because of my name. See, if someone's going to, you know, maintain a standard that God has set, now that's not going to be viewed. You know, when people are hostile to virtue, they're haters of good. You know, there may be reason, you know, that you would find that you would be hated of all nations because of my name, and many will fall away.

And they will betray one another and hate one another, and many false prophets will arise and lead many astray. And in verse 12, is what I want to focus on because of the increase of lawlessness, because iniquity abounds. That was the only way I could summarize, you know, what we were listening to as far as we talk about trends in society. As iniquity abounds, or there's an increase of lawlessness, the love of many will wax coal. It will grow coal. People will become more indifferent.

And brethren, we don't want to be that way. It goes ahead, of course, to say that but the one who endures to the end is going to be saved. You know, we need to endure through that.

And, of course, verse 14, the good news of the kingdom, the gospel of the kingdom, will be proclaimed throughout the world as a testimony to the nations, and then the end will come.

We have a job to do. We still have a job to do, even in these dire conditions that God explains to us are, you know, going to occur. I think we see that. Another trend that was so obvious was just simply the massive use of the internet. Now, in many ways, that can be good. You know, obviously we can cover things that there was no way of distributing or no way of reaching out in the same way in the past. Radio waves or television waves are one thing.

The internet and the massive ability to be able to reach out everywhere in, you know, almost every little or every individual can be easily accessing the internet. And, as I say, that could be good, but too often it's not. Too often it is easily misused. And, of course, the outcome of that is, you know, we have a shortened attention span. We're not able to focus like we used to.

I mean, I see that with myself. I don't know that I can change that altogether. I can try to focus. I can try to, you know, actually if I do focus on things, I'm able to do that.

But having a shortened attention span is not a real benefit. You know, it's something that we want to be sure that we are able. And, of course, our church services, if for an hour and a half or two hours, that's not what people normally think of as a church service. And that's helpful to us. But, of course, as we had in this session regarding the pervasiveness of pornography, the reason for this is because of such ease of availability. You know, on the internet, the evil effects of easily available and easily hidden internet access.

See, unfortunately, I don't have all the statistics that were given regarding pornography and pornography use, but like I said, it becomes an addiction. It becomes a brain problem. And, of course, we want to guard against that since we understand that lust, even as Jesus defined it in Matthew 5, verse 28, is sin. You know, it's not to be dabbled in or it's not to be played with. Whenever we're told to flee fornication, and you're not doing that if pornography is something that someone is indivisible. See, why would that be even a possibility among people who maybe call themselves Christian? Or why would it be a possibility even among the Church of God? Well, because, amazingly, we still have human nature. Amazingly, we still have lustful thoughts. And we have to guard against that. 1 John chapter 2. John mentions that there's a lot more that we could go to on this, perhaps. But, you know, whenever Jesus points out that lust, not just physical adultery, but lust for a person of the opposite sex, and you could say, I guess, for this same sex, even as they would view it today in the world, is sin. But here in 1 John chapter 2, verse 15, do not love the world, or the things that are in the world. The love of the Father is not in those who love the world.

And so, He is pointing out there's a difference in growing in the love of God, and in a closeness to God, and in an appreciation for what God is doing, and what you see in the world. For He says in verse 16, all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, comes not from the Father, but from the world. See, it's unique that you see a description there of the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life. That's an entire sermon in itself, which I'll wait for as we go forward. But see, you know, that's a description that Peter actually gives. This is John writing, but Peter actually gives that the world is in the condition that it's in because it is corrupted through lust, and that we have to turn from that to be able to pursue a different nature, a divine nature. So, in a sense, whenever I said, you know, some of our discussions were kind of sobering or even disturbing, you know, just to realize that most of us carry around, or many of us carry around, a phone that can interact with all kinds of good stuff, and a world of bad stuff. And unfortunately, many people don't make very good decisions. And certainly, people in general, you know, make very bad decisions because they don't see any reason not to. And it appeals to their lust, their nature, their flesh. So, the second thing I wanted to mention was simply, you know, the trends that are in society, but that we don't want to be ignorant of Satan's devices, of the way that he gets people to buy into his system. You know, we want to be careful about how we use those things. The last thing I want to mention, and Mr. Holiday wrote a little more about this in the e-news that I sent to you, is just the fact that, you know, we need to be reminded. We need to be reminded that we have been called to a way of life that you would describe as being holy. See here in 1 Peter, back a few pages, he says, in 1 Peter 1, therefore, prepare your minds for action, discipline yourself, set all your hope on the grace that Jesus will bring you when he is revealed. Like obedient children, do not be conformed to the desires that you formerly had in ignorance. Instead, as he who called you as holy, be holy yourself in all your conduct, for it is written, you shall be holy because I am holy. You know, we've been given the power of God. I know Mr. Jackson mentioned this earlier, and we're going to be given additional power to rule in the future. But we've been given a power from God to be transform us even today. It's more or less an individual transformation and new creation that God is doing. And yet, you know, let me read a little bit, you know, whenever you think about how it is that we need to seek lives that could be described as holy. Sometimes we find some of the problems we run into is because of lack of holiness. Not respecting God's values, not honoring even the Sabbath, or appearing before God. I mean, it's special for us to come and appear before God and to be able to read the Word of God and to have God guide and lead us, but also for us to worship God in unison. Those are all a part of holiness. Let me read some of this that Mr. Holiday wrote.

He said, one of the topics of discussion that emerged from discussing current trends was the issue of holiness. Most of the cultural standards in the Western world do not reflect godly holiness. Of course, to be holy means to be set apart and sanctified and consecrated to be upright or blameless in heart and in our mind. He quotes a Barnas study, which of course is dealing with church-going people. He says Americans are increasingly comfortable picking and choosing what they deem to be helpful and accurate theological views and have become comfortable discarding the rest of the teachings of the Bible. People, even if they go to church, they kind of pick and choose what I think I ought to do. He says, as the elect of God, we're not free to pick and choose what sections of the Bible we will believe. Do we trust the Scriptures as the divine revelation of God the mankind? Do we pick and choose which values to embrace? Or do we look to God as the ultimate authority?

See, that's what we don't want to break down in.

The Bible is a revelation from God of spiritual knowledge and understanding that mankind would not be able to discover on his own. God makes known how to direct our steps. Holiness should direct all of our thinking and our actions. If we're going to grow spiritually, if we're going to grow and mature spiritually, then there's going to be an emphasis in our thoughts.

And what I do, or is what I'm doing, is it reflecting a right respect for God, a right respect for God's Word. He mentions our music, our movies, swim attire, he mentions, because we discuss that some. That's always a difficulty to try to teach modesty in our camp settings and then beyond. When we go to the feast, if we're in a sandy, warm water area, will our lives reflect the culture of the day, or will they reflect God's values in action?

He kind of concludes by saying, God expresses the fact that we are to be holy as he is holy. That's not a platitude, it's a standard that we strive to emulate daily.

And it does come down to an individual responsibility. We all have a responsibility to seek and to reflect a closeness to God. And, like I said earlier, is Christ living in me? Is my mind closely associated with what Christ is doing and thinking? That's where we need to be encouraged to do that. So, those are things that I wanted to point out just regarding our conference. I think it's encouraging to be, in a sense, instructed in this way from the standpoint of the ministry. But it also is important for us. As we reach out to the world, we want to do that in a spiritually mature way. We want to be different as we should be because we have the power of the Holy Spirit. And we clearly want to be aware of the trends that go on and not be ignorant of how Satan uses things to corrupt people. And we can fall prey to that if we are not careful. And then finally, a lack of holiness can be resolved. We can do our part because we know that that's what it says and we know that's what we're supposed to do. And so, we can be on guard and we can grow spiritually mature and we can be spiritually engaging. That's a responsibility that we have. And of course, Peter admonishes us, because we know these things, what manner of life should we be leading? And I think, as we earnestly pray, we can watch the world around us in a distressing time. And we can pray or should earnestly pray for the Kingdom to come.

But perhaps here in 1 Corinthians 14, I know this is talking about speaking in tongues, and there are different sections here and different statements that are made that would be applicable to us in other settings. But here in 1 Corinthians 14, verse 20, it says, brethren, do not be children in your thinking. And so, he says, as adults, you should be spiritually mature. Do not be children in your thinking. Rather, be children or be infants in evil. But in thinking or in your understanding, be adults. I think that's what it would summarize what we can do, what we should do, as the people of God in not only drawing close to God, but in reflecting His standards that would involve, and that certainly include, an understanding of holiness. So we have a challenge, in a sense, before us, but not a challenge that we're not able to meet. With the help of God, with the power of His Spirit, we're able to do that. And so, that, I guess, is kind of a summary of my thinking of what it was we covered at the conference. And I'm glad to be able to pass that on and hope that that can be helpful to all of us.

Thank you.