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Amen. Well, if you're new to the story, we're in a summer teaching series on discipleship called Disciple, talking about what it means to be a disciple of Christ. And we are going to be finishing this series out next week. And then I'm excited next week to share with y'all the fall series that we're going to be jumping into. But as I was praying this week and thinking about discipleship and um what God wanted me to share, uh I was considering how discipleship is actually a lot like marriage. Um and when you get married, for those who are married or will be married one day, the way it works is you you stand at the altar and you kind of make some vows, and uh the person performing the ceremony says, Do you take this person to be your husband? Do you take this person to be your wife? And with those two simple words, I do, in that moment, the man becomes a husband. It's a new identity. And in that moment, the woman becomes a wife and receives that new identity. Just through one simple vow, one simple word, you become converted to marriage, if you would. But as any married person in the room knows, or as those of you who will one day be married will one day find out, just because you said I do and became a husband, or just because you said I do and became a wife, doesn't mean you know how to be a husband, and it doesn't mean you know how to be a wife. And I learned this the hard way. I've been married a little over 10 years now. I remember I said I do, and I got married, and I was like, okay, you know, I've read a few books, I did some premarital counseling, I'm ready for this, but I had no idea what it meant to be a husband, and and really still don't, really still need to try to figure that out. But I remember on our honeymoon, I was like, okay, well, one of the parts of probably being a husband is you got to share the greatest joys of your life with your spouse, right? So one of my greatest joys and passions is surfing. And so me and my wife went on a honeymoon to Mexico, and I was like, what better way to build a bond and connection than to teach my wife how to surf? She must really need to do that if we're gonna have a successful marriage, right? So I we were on the beach one day and finally a kind of big swell came in, and I was like, it's the time. I'm gonna rent a surfboard and I'm gonna teach her how to surf. And she was like a little bit hesitant, she's not really into board sports, but I was like, I was like, we got this. And so I rented a long board and I was like, you're just gonna lay on the end of the board and I'm gonna paddle out and we're just gonna wait for the big set. And the dream was just like get her barreled, like let her just get in the barrel, and then she'd get addicted to surfing and we'd live happily ever after. So we're paddling out, and she's still pretty sus. She's like, I don't know about this. And I was like, I'm just sitting way outside the lineup, I'm waiting for the big set to come through. And finally, this massive set comes through, and I was like, just hold on to the edge of the board. And she's like, Okay. And so I start paddling into this wave, and we start dropping in, probably like eight to ten foot faces, and I just could see it in my mind, like, I'm gonna ride down the line, she's gonna get barreled, she's gonna love surfing forever, and it's gonna be amazing. And as I start trying to drop into the wave, I realize I have a human being on the front of my board, which, if you know anything about surfing, you don't want weight on the nose of the board. And so, as we're dropping in, all of a sudden the nose just completely dives under the wave, the board flips over, smashes her in the head. She's under the water, washing machine, comes up like sucking for air, and just like freaking out at me, like yelling at me. I was like, this is not what I thought honeymoons were like, right? She's like, You almost killed me. And I was like, we can get the next one. And she's like, I'm never doing this again. And so she's never tried surfing again from that moment forward. And so, again, I was a husband, but I didn't really know how to be a husband. I didn't know that's probably not a good idea to put your wife on the edge of the surfboard. So, again, in marriage, it it begins with this vow and it begins with the commitment. But as you know, that is just the beginning of the journey. The reality is it takes a lifetime to learn how to be a husband or to learn how to be a wife. And this is exactly how our relationship with Christ is as well. When you became a disciple of Christ, the moment you confessed Jesus as Lord, the moment you repented of your sins and trusted in the finished work of Jesus, in that single moment you received a new identity. In that single moment, you became a disciple of Christ. But the problem is you probably don't know how to be a disciple. You didn't know what it meant to be a disciple and how to actually grow into that. And so, again, just as discipleship begins with a commitment, it begins with a vow, growing in our discipleship and learning to be a disciple, that takes a lifetime. And that's what we've been discussing throughout this whole summer series on discipleship, how we grow and mature and become the disciples that Christ has called us to be. And it's interesting, this is actually why in the scriptures, one of the most common metaphors describing our relationship with Christ is the metaphor of marriage. We see it all throughout the scriptures that our relationship with Christ is pictured by the picture of marriage. And I'll give you just a few examples. In Isaiah chapter 54, Isaiah says, Your maker is your husband. In Isaiah 62, it says, God rejoices over Jerusalem as a bridegroom rejoices over the bride. In Hosea chapter 2, God promises to his people, I will betrothe you to myself forever. God is pledging his covenant love to his people. In 2 Corinthians 11, Paul says, believers are betrothed to one husband who is Christ. In Ephesians 5, Paul says, Christ is the husband of the church, and the church is the bride. And that's what our earthly marriages are a picture of. They're a picture of the church's covenant relationship with Christ. And then in Revelation chapter 19, it describes the marriage supper of the Lamb, where the bride who is the church has made herself ready for the coming of Christ. And this is just a small handful. I could go on and on, but over and over you see this metaphor in scripture that our relationship with Christ is like the picture of marriage. And so here's the big idea this morning: a disciple is someone who has been made one with Christ through union with Christ, but discipleship is learning to live out of this new identity for our entire lives. And so this is what God wants for you. This is what God wants for me, that our whole lives we would continue to grow and mature as disciples and followers of Jesus, that more and more every day we would become more like Christ. And that's really what discipleship is. Discipleship is learning to become more like Christ. And this reality of us being conformed into the image of Christ, it is a past, present, and future reality. My sermon this morning is discipleship: a past, present, and future reality. And I want you to show, I want you to see this for yourself in the scriptures. This is something that God did in the past. This is something God does in our lives in the present by the work of the Holy Spirit. And it is something that will be brought to completion in the future. So if you're a note-taker, you can write these down. The past, present, and future realities of discipleship. The first one, past, we see in Romans chapter 8, verse 29. And in Romans chapter 8, verse 29, it says this. It says, For those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to be conformed to the image of the Son. Now that that concept being conformed to the image of Son, of the Son, that is what discipleship is: that we are becoming more like Jesus. And here Paul says that this is a past reality that Christ has predestined us in the past for this to take place, to be conformed into the image of the Son. So the reality is this, as far as your discipleship, before you ever said yes to Jesus, before you were ever born, before, in fact, the foundation of the earth was ever even laid, Christ predestined you and chose you to be a disciple. He chose you to be a person who would be conformed into the image of the Son, that you would look more and more like him and less and less of the person that you were apart from Christ. And so this is a past reality that Christ has begun in each one of us. But it is also a present reality that happens in our daily lives. And the present element of our discipleship, we see clearly in 2 Corinthians 3, verse 18. Here's what Paul writes there. He says, And we all with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed, that's present, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. So God not only predestined us to be conformed to the image of the Son in the past, but presently He transforms us to be more like Christ. We are transformed into the image of Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit. So as we daily, in our daily lives, as we behold the glory of God, as we fix the gaze of our heart and our eyes upon Him, the Spirit of God does something in our lives on a daily basis. More and more as my gaze is gaze is gazing towards Christ, I become like the person I am beholding. We become what we behold. And so this is how it works in our present life. That on a daily basis, as a as I grow as a disciple, it is a present reality and Christ-likeness is formed in me. And then finally, there is a future reality. There's gonna come a day where you will no longer need to grow in your discipleship, you will fully be the person Christ has called you to be. And we see this in 1 John chapter 3, verse 2. In 1 John 3, verse 2, the apostle John writes this Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared, but we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. So at the second coming of Christ, when when Jesus returns, when the bridegroom returns for the bride, it says that we will see him in all of his glory, and when we see him, we shall be like him, which again, that is the goal of discipleship, that we become more like Jesus. He predestined us to it in the past. The spirit of God does that in us in the present and in the future, we will see him and we will be like him. And this is the hope, really, that all disciples can cling to. This is our hope as disciples of Christ that although in this lifetime I'm never gonna be perfect, although in this lifetime I'm gonna fall short, although in this lifetime the spirit and the flesh are at odds against each other, there is coming a day when we will see Jesus face to face, and in that day, a spiritual transformation will take place that can never be undone. In that day when we see Christ face to face, our sin nature will be done away with. In that day, our flesh will be fully crucified. In that day, our mortal bodies, Paul says, will inherit immortality, and we will be like Christ, and we will be with Christ for all eternity. And that is the hope of the gospel. That is our hope as disciples of Christ that one day we will fully be like him. So again, here we see three perspectives: a past reality, a present reality, and a future reality of how Christ's likeness is formed in us. We are predestined in the past, we are being conformed and transformed in the present by the work of the Holy Spirit, and in the future, when Christ returns, we will see him face to face. And so, my question for you this morning, pertaining to all three of those elements, is this number one, are you trusting that he who began a good work in you in the past is gonna bring it to completion? Are you trusting that discipleship that wasn't just something that you did, that's something that God did in you? That's something that he called you to, that's something he predestined you to, that's something that he chose of you, that you would be conformed to the image of the Son. Are you trusting he who began a good work will be faithful to bring it to completion? Secondly, are you submitting to the work of the Holy Spirit in the present? Paul says again, as we behold the glory of God, presently we are being transformed from one degree of glory to another, and this comes from the Holy Spirit. Are you daily submitting your life to the work of the Spirit? Are you making space in your daily life to hear from the Holy Spirit, to commune with the Holy Spirit, who Jesus said is the helper who will guide us into all truth? What God wants for you and what God wants for me is to be guided into the truth, but we need the Holy Spirit in the present to do that. And then finally, are you finding hope in the reality that Christ is returning soon for his bride? Is that what your hope is in? Or is your hope in the bigger house and the bigger paycheck and the bigger one, or is your hope in God that one day I will see you and I will fully be like you? And my prayer for us as a church is that that's where our hope would be, that that's where our eyes and the affection of our heart would be set on the soon-coming return of Christ for his bride. So because the work of Christ in our lives is a past reality, uh, and because it began in the past, that's not something we control. We also know it's a future reality, which we don't have a timeline on that. We don't know when Christ will return and that work will be complete. I want to focus the rest of our time this morning on the present reality. I want to double-click on how is it that the Holy Spirit helps us grow in the present? How is it that presently today and tomorrow and this week and this month we can continue to become more like Jesus? And in Luke chapter 6, Jesus gives us the answer to that question. So, Luke chapter 6, look down with me if you would, starting in verse 39. We're gonna look at the present way that we continue to be conformed into the image of Christ. He says this in Luke 6, verse 39. He also told them a parable. Can a blind man lead a blind man? Will they not both fall into a pit? Verse 40 a disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher. So Jesus here is speaking to his disciples, and in verse 39, he is warning them about the type of people that they follow. He says, if you're following a blind person, you are gonna become blind as well. You're gonna be just like them, you're gonna become like who you follow, and they're gonna lead you into a pit. They're gonna fall into a pit and you're gonna fall into a pit as well. So blindness is used here metaphorically, just as it is all through the scripture, to talk about those who are spiritually blind. And so the point Jesus is making is you are gonna become more like those who you follow. If you're following people who are spiritually blind, if you're following people who aren't pointing you to Christ, if you're following people who themselves aren't being sanctified and becoming more like Christ, you're gonna become just like them. And so in your life and in my life, if the people that we are following and look up to are spiritually blind, we will find ourselves like them in the pit. We will find ourselves not progressing in our discipleship. And so the question for you, and the question for me this morning is really simple. It's who are you following? Who are the people that you're following? Who are the people that you're allowing to speak into your life? Who are the people that you're being influenced by? What are the voices that are shaping you? What are the voices that are cultivating the desires of your heart? And the reality, I think we can all be honest here, is in our current cultural climate, most Christians spend far more time being discipled by the news and far more time doom scrolling TikTok and Instagram and binging the newest series on Netflix and Hulu or living in the false reality of roadblocks or Fortnite or Grand Theft Auto or Call of Duty than they actually spend in genuine community with other believers, or even more so with the person of Christ. The voices that are shaping us and speaking into our lives and cultivating the soil of our heart are really blind guides that they're leading us, and we become more blind as we follow these guides. And so, in our culture, with the echo chambers of social media and the attention economy of entertainment and the infatuation with celebrity pop culture and the escapism onto the align uh online world, all these things are rather deforming our hearts. If the goal of discipleship is that we become more like our teacher, more like Jesus, these things they deform us. We become less like the people God has called us to be and less like Christ. And so the question for us is well, what's the solution to that then? Because this is a reality. I fight this every day. How much time am I doing all these things, engaging on social media, watching stuff, just filling my mind with a bunch of stuff that is just making me more blind to the reality of the kingdom of God? How do we cultivate a heart posture and what is the solution to this? And this is exactly what Jesus says in verse 40. We don't have to guess. He gives us the solution. Look at verse 40. He says, A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone, when he is fully trained, will be like his teacher. So he starts by saying, if the people you're following and the things you're filling your mind and your heart with are just blind, it's gonna produce spiritual blindness. And then he says, A disciple is not above his teacher, but notice verse 40, when everyone is fully trained, they will, you will be like your teacher. He will be like his teacher. So here's what Jesus is saying in the present, because we can't control the past which Christ began, we don't know the future when he returns and we'll be like him. But in the present, if we want to become more like Jesus, we must be fully trained. The way we become more like Jesus in the present is to be fully trained. Becoming like Jesus is not something that happens accidentally. Growing as a disciple is not something that happens passively. It takes intentional training, and training is a process. Now, notice again that phrase, fully trained. To become fully trained would also imply that there are some people who are partially trained, and it would also imply that there are some people who are not really trained at all. But this is the reality that Jesus acknowledges that every single person in this room and every person who's ever walked the face of the earth is at a different place in their training. And that's okay. There's no there's no judgment on that, or it's not a moral judgment, it's just a reality. Every person starts in a different place. Some people in the room today, you've been training to be like Jesus for 40, 50, 60 years. And some people in the room today, you've been training to be like Jesus, you've been following Jesus for maybe just a few years or just a few months. And some of you in the room today, you've never actually started training because you've never surrendered your life to Christ. That is just a reality. But again, it's like we we have to understand that the starting point for us to continue to grow in the present, it starts not by looking at other people, it starts with where am I at in my walk with Jesus? It's the same thing as if you went to the gym for the first time. If you decided one day, like, you know what, I'm not really in the best of shape, I probably should start going to the gym. If you went to the gym for it for the first time, or if you started running for the first time, you're like, man, I really need to step up my cardio. The bar is not how much is the dude next to me benching? I need to do that. No, that would be impossible. The bar is not, well, what pace is everybody else running the race? The bar is how quick can I go? And that's really all that matters. And so again, what God expects of us in our discipleship in the present is just to start where we're at. To just acknowledge the reality that I'm not like this guy, I'm not like them, I can't bench that much, I can't run that quick, but I can start where I'm at. And that's important to understand because too many Christians get stuck in this unhealthy mindset of comparison. Newer Christians feel maybe a little bit ashamed or maybe even guilty starting out because you're like, man, how could I ever be like this guy? How could I ever be like that gal? How could I ever be like these people who've been walking with Jesus 50 years? Well, they're like that because they've been walking with Jesus 50 years. And so don't not start just because there's somebody who's way ahead of you. It starts where you're at. And on the flip side, there's some of you who are who are disciples who have been walking with Jesus 40, 50, 60 years, and and some Christians who've been walking with Jesus for a long time become critical of newer Christians who don't carry the same weight of spiritual discernment or wisdom as they do. And so you become critical of disciples who you should be discipling and investing in, and you say, Well, why are they doing that? Why do they dress like that? Why do they talk like that? Why are they still going out here? Why are they and you're becoming judgmental of people who it's because they haven't trained yet? They're just starting off, and they need someone like you to come alongside them and to pour your wisdom and to pour your life into them. And so, again, for every person to become fully trained, so that we might become like our master, so we might become more like Jesus, we have to stop looking at other people, and rather we have to take a good, hard, long look at our own hearts and pray like the psalmist David, who said, Search me, O God, and know my heart. Try me, oh God, and know my thoughts. See if there be any wicked way in me and lead me in the way everlasting. And that's what I would encourage you in this morning to just do that, to say, God, I'm gonna look at my heart and what are the parts of my heart and what are the parts of my life that are not in alignment, that are not in accordance with who you have called me to be, with who you have created me to be. And that's where the training starts. God, I'm gonna work on this by the power of your Holy Spirit. If you're bringing conviction to this part of my heart that's out of alignment with who you've called me to be, would you help me and your strength to be able to grow in this area? And it's interesting because that word fully trained, by the way, in verse 40, when he says, Everyone who is fully trained will be like his teacher, it's the Greek word caritzo. And what it means is to be set into the appropriate condition to set right what has gone wrong or to restore to a former condition. Condition. Really interesting. Fully trained is restoring something to a former condition. Fully trained is setting right something that has gone wrong. It is fitting and joining together that which is out of joint. So for us to be fully trained, we have to ask these questions in our daily lives. God, what is out of alignment in my heart today that you are trying to bring into alignment? God, what in my life is going wrong? Where am I going and walking in the wrong direction that today you are trying to set right? What are the parts of my heart and life that are in need of restoration? What are the broken pieces in my soul and in my heart that you, God, by the power of your spirit, are trying to fix and mend together and restore? And if you will actually ask yourself those questions, if you'll actually, like the psalmist David, look at your heart and say, God, what's broken that needs fixed? What's wrong that needs to be made right? What is it that you're trying to do in me? If you'll actually look at your heart and invite the Holy Spirit to show you what those things are, that is the beginning of training. Again, not looking at other people's hearts and other people's lives and how far ahead they are, how far behind you feel. Looking at your heart and saying, God, what are you trying to do in my heart today? And as the Holy Spirit brings things brings things to light, which he will, by the way, if you say, Holy Spirit, bring to light the parts of my heart that are not producing spiritual fruit in my life. Prune those, prune the dead parts of my heart and the dead parts of my life. If you will invite him to do that, he will reveal them. And when he does, you have a choice to make, like we all do every single day. When the Holy Spirit reveals something in our heart that is not right, we can keep turning a blind eye to the things that are broken. We can keep living a spiritually complacent life. We can keep it hidden in the darkness and try to bury it and just keep trying to muscle through in the spiritual life, or we can say, God, I acknowledge that I can't do this on my own. I acknowledge that I can't fix this. I acknowledge that I don't have the strength to do this, and yet your grace is made perfect and your strength is made perfect in my weakness. That's the starting point. It's acknowledging, God, I can't do this apart from your strength. And it's fixing the gaze of our heart on Jesus so that we might become more like him. And again, this is not just something that happened the day you said, Jesus, I want to follow you. This is a decision. Discipleship is a decision and a choice we have to make every single day. Training to become like our master and actually becoming more like Jesus, it is something that we'd have to decide every single day. Daily sacrifice and daily training and daily surrender to the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives. Amen? Amen. So I want to end this morning by just getting very, very practical. Just as practical because you might say, yeah, that's really cool theologically, past, present, and future. We're being conformed to the image of Christ and we were chosen and we're gonna be like him. But today, what does that look like for me? How can I train today? And what does that look like for me today to surrender to the Spirit and to actually grow and strengthen those spiritual muscles so that I might become more like Christ today? And similar to those of you you guys have seen a person like this before, for those of you who ever go to the gym, there's certain people at the gym where there's just a out-of-balance proportion, if you know what I'm talking about. It's the dude who's always working the upper, it's like super jacked, but you're like, bro, you got little twig legs, brother. Like, put some put some work into the legs a little bit too, right? Like it's funny seeing people like that. And you're like, there's a lack of balance. Why is that? Well, because they're training certain muscles, but they're not training others. And so those muscles are in recession. And so it's the same spiritually. To say we need to be fully trained means there are different spiritual muscles in our life that if we don't put work in, if we don't train to affix those onto Christ and attach those to Christ, that they will be in spiritual atrophy. And so I want to give you seven elements of the human body that very practically you can train so that they might become more like Jesus. The first one is this if you're a note taker, I'd really encourage you to write these down. This is very practical. Number one, we must train our minds to be set on things above. You're saying, okay, Zeb, how do I how do I train to be more like Christ? It starts with your mind. Number one, train to set our minds on things above. We see this in Colossians chapter 3, verse 1 through 3. Paul the Apostle writes this if then you have been raised with Christ, that is a past reality. It's already happened. We're raised with Him. If you've been raised with Christ, seek the things, seek is in the present, seek the things that are above where Christ is. Seated at the right hand of God, set your minds on things that are above, not on the things that are on the earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with God in Christ. So the the the the finished reality is we've already been crucified with Christ. You've died with him, but in the present, here's how we train set your minds on things above, not on things of the earth. So my question for you is how how's that going? Are you training your mind in the present to set your mind on things above? What are the things when your mind wanders that you find wandering towards? Is it just earthly desires, or is it, man, God, help my mind to be fixed on the heavenly eternal reality? And that is a discipline where by training we can set our minds on things above. When all the world is thinking about only what's happening here, we can say, God, I'm gonna stay heavenly minded. So we must train our minds, number one, to be set on things above. Number two, we must train our ears to hear the voice of the good shepherd. Jesus said it this way in John chapter 10, verse 27. He said, My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. So, one element of our spiritual training so that we might become more like Jesus in the present is our ears. What are the things that we are training our ears to hear? And Jesus says, My sheep hear my voice. And the result is that they will end up following me. Here's the thing if you're not hearing the voice of Jesus, you will not be following Jesus. If you're hearing the voice of blind guides and everything and culture, all the other voices, that's what you're gonna follow. But if we want to be like Jesus, we have to follow Jesus. And if we want to follow Jesus, we have to hear Jesus. We have to train our ears to hear the voice of the Good Shepherd. So, how much time and when is the last time you took space to say, Jesus, I want to hear from you? I've been hearing a lot of what's happening on the news and hearing a lot of what's happening on social media and hearing a lot of what's happening on Netflix. But God, what is it you're wanting to say to me today? And that is a discipline that you can train in on a daily basis, making space to open your ears to hear the voice of the good shepherd. Number three, we must train our eyes to remain fixed on Christ. The author of Hebrews in Hebrews chapter 12, verse 2, he says, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter. That's beginning and end. Founder, he started it, perfecter, that's in the future. But in the present, we need to keep our eyes looking to Jesus, who for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. So one spiritual muscle that you can train is your eyes. God, what am I fixing my eyes on? Are my eyes fixed on you? The psalmist said, I will put no worthless thing before my eyes. What are your eyes looking at? Because the reality is what you behold is what you will become. The things that we look at, Jesus said, the lamp of the body is the eye. If the things coming in from the eye are evil, everything in the body is gonna be evil. If the things coming into the eye are good, it's gonna produce spiritual fruit in our lives. So that's just a simple question for you to evaluate. God, what is training my eyes look like? What are the things I'm placing before my eyes? And God, am I fixing my eyes on you? Are your eyes set on Jesus? So that you might have Him not only as the founder and perfecter, but even in the present, God, my eyes are on you and my attention is on you. Fourth, we must train our feet to walk in the ways of righteousness. We must train our feet to walk in the ways of righteousness. In Proverbs 4, verse 26 and 27, here's what it says: ponder the path of your feet. Then all your ways will be sure. Do not swerve to the right or to the left. Turn your foot away from evil. Did you know the foot is a spiritual muscle that you can train or not train? And in Proverbs it says, ponder the path of your feet. Like before you actually go somewhere physically, before you go, like think about where you're going. Is the place you're going gonna be a place that is gonna be spiritually beneficial to you? Is the place you're going and the people you're going there with and the people you're surrounding yourself with, are they gonna make you more like Christ? Are they pointing you to Christ? Or is the place you're going a place of death? Is it a blind guide leading the blind? And it says, don't swerve from the right or the left, turn your foot away from evil. So I just simply want to ask, how's your feet training going? Where are your feet taking you? Where are they carrying you? Do you ever actually think about that? Because he says, ponder it. Stop before you go somewhere, stop, ponder the path of your feet. So part of the spiritual training is learning to do that. That's what wisdom does. Wisdom says, is this a place that I should go? Is this a place that I should be? Is this a place where I'm gonna grow, or is this a place where I'm gonna be deformed and pulled away from the things that God wants for me? And so we must train our feet to walk in the ways of righteousness. Number five, we must train our hands to worship. The psalmist said in Psalm 134, verse 2 lift up your hands to the holy place and bless the Lord. Part of spiritual training is learning to just lift our hands, which by the way is a symbol. We're saying, God, I'm lifting, I'm giving you my whole life again. It's an act of surrender when you lift your hands. I'm surrendering everything to you again. We do that with our hands, but it's a spiritual posture of our whole body, which is why Paul said, present your whole body as a living sacrifice. Me doing this in worship, whether on Sunday or in my car or in my house or on a walk, God, I'm just, I'm with my hands, I'm worshiping you. That's saying I'm re-surrendering everything to you again. And that's something again that takes training. That's something that can be a day by day, moment by moment. God man, I'm really struggling here, but I'm gonna lift my hands again. I'm gonna give you praise when I feel like I when I feel like I'm I'm in the flesh right now. I'm gonna give you praise when I'm feeling temptation. I'm gonna I'm gonna riff lift my hands and praise you in worship. That is something that we can train our hands to do. Number six, we must train our mouths to impart words of life and encouragement. Training the mouth, that that's another spiritual muscle. And in Ephesians 6, verse 29, Paul puts it this way: He says, Let no corrupt talk come out of your mouth, but only such as is good for building up, as fits the occasion, that it may give grace to those who hear. So what what's coming out of your mouth? Are the words coming out of your mouth, are they imparting life? Are they building people up? Is it bringing encouragement or is it tearing people down? The book of James says that the tongue and the mouth, the words that come out of our mouth, it's it's like a fire that can set a whole entire forest ablaze. From our tongue come praise to God and also curses towards men. And he says, My friends, this ought not be so. And that's because again, this this is a muscle, the mouth and the tongue, this is a muscle that takes taming for us to say, God, let this muscle be used for your glory. Let the words that come out of my mouth be that that encourage people and that build people up. Let my the words in my mouth be that which impart life rather than death. And so again, for you, everyone's in a different place with that. What what are the words that are coming out of your mouth? Have you have you trained your mouth to build up and to bring encouragement and edification? Or are you continuing to just gossip and tear people down and people are saying, Well, look at this person, they go to church, but they don't seem like they are really building people up in the ways of Christ. Let our mouse be something that we train for the glory of Christ. And seventh and finally, I'll close with this. We must train the gaze of our heart to behold the glory of Christ. We must train the gaze of our heart to behold the glory of Christ. And we already talked about this. This is the present reality of how we are conformed to the image of Christ in 2 Corinthians 3 18, but I'll read it again. He says again, and we all with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another, for this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit. Beholding the glory of the Lord, that that is not physically with the eye, that will happen in the future when he returns. That's a posture of the heart. God, is my heart longing for your glory? Today, God, am I filling my heart with the reality of who you are and the reality of what you've done, beholding the glory of Christ so that we might be transformed into that same image from one degree of glory to another. And that takes training. And this probably takes more training than the rest because the heart, the natural heart, is prone to the things of the world. The natural heart, Jesus says, from it flow all sorts of evil and wickedness and adultery and fornication and covetousness and all these things, they flow out of the heart, but you have a new heart. If you've been filled with the Holy Spirit, which all believers have at the moment of salvation, you're given a new heart. And from that new heart flow springs of life that might pull other people into the reality of the kingdom as well. So we must train the gaze of our heart daily. God, what am I filling my heart with? What is controlling my heart? What is swaying my heart? Let me do all things, as Paul said, for the glory of God. Would you, Christ, be beloved and beheld and glorified in our hearts? So in closing, again, and these are just seven. Training our minds to be set on things above, training our ears to hear the voice of the shepherd, training our eyes to remain fixed on Christ, training our feet to walk in the way of righteousness, training our hands in worship, training our mouth to impart words of life, and training our hearts to behold the glory of Christ. And so my question for you is where is their imbalance? What are the areas for you? Because for each person it's different, where you're like, man, maybe you have been training your mind, but maybe it's the eyes. Maybe like there's just some things that I know I've been watching or looking at that are just worthless. And God, I need you by the power of your spirit to help me to train my eyes in righteousness. Or maybe like, man, my eyes have been pretty good, but just the things I've been listening to, the ears, maybe there's a spiritual imbalance there. And I've been just filling my ears and listening to just a bunch of garbage, a bunch of junk that is actually pulling me and pulling my heart away from Christ. Maybe that's the area Christ is calling you to grow today. For some of you, it might be your feet. For some of you, it might be your hands, for some of you, it could be your eyes. For everybody, it's different. And so what I want to encourage you in this morning is to just examine the patterns and the habits and the disciplines in your life and just invite the Holy Spirit and say, Holy Spirit, what are the areas of my life where today in the present you're calling me to be more like Jesus? What are the areas of my life where you're calling me into deeper training? Maybe spiritually, I'm immature and spiritually I'm weak here. And so that's the area where the Holy Spirit is inviting you to grow and to be sanctified in your discipleship so that you might become more like Christ. Amen. Amen. Let's pray. Jesus, thank you so much for your word. Thank you for each person in this room, God, and the work that you've begun in their hearts that you're going to be bringing to completion. Thank you for the future reality and the future hope that we have, God, that when we see you, we will be like you. But God, in the present, I pray you will teach us by the power of your spirit to be fully trained so that we will be like you, our master. God, that's that's the deepest desire of our heart. And sometimes we have desires that momentarily are stronger that pull us away from that. God, but as disciples of Christ, our deepest desire is we want to be like you. We want to reflect you to this broken and dying world. And so, God, help us to see the areas in our life where we're not fully trained. Help us to see the areas of our heart, God, where it's being pulled in the wrong direction. Help us to see the places that our feet are taking us that are pulling us away from you. Help us to see the things we're putting before our eyes, God, that are not accurately reflecting that of a disciple whose eyes should be fixed on Jesus and whose heart and mind should be set on things above. And so, God, we we can't do this. We can't produce this in and of ourselves. We we need your strength and we need your grace to continue to expose those parts of our life that are not reflecting the type of person that you've called us to be. And we need your grace and your strength to help us grow in those areas. So, God, we just pray today, give us strength. We pray today, God, that we would walk and trust in your grace. And we thank you that that's only possible because you've already made that fully available by the finished work of your son, Jesus Christ. Thank you, Christ, for dying on the cross for our sins. So that now, as Chris reminded us, as far as the east is from the west, we're no longer defined by that. We have a new identity. We're disciples of you, Christ. And so teach us daily to walk with you, teach us daily to hear from you, teach us daily to keep our eyes on you so that we might become the disciples you've called us to be. And we just pray this all in Jesus' name. And everyone said, Amen.