How does transformation, how does this maturity actually take place? How does it drive the way that both we work on ourselves, but also how we pastor people within our churches?

Look, I think this is a space where, again, this pokes us theologically a little bit.

So because we have some convictions, you know, salvation is grace alone.

There's no contribution of our works towards that, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

We know that when it comes to knowing God, it's about his revelation and his working must rather than our response.

So there are a number of little kind of phrases and taglines that we use that describe something for us culturally, right? I do think what I see is that sometimes that obscures the reality of the fact that Scripture actually often calls us to respond to God's work and to God's sovereignty by this kind of determined, hard, faithful work.

You can think of places like 2 Peter 1 or Colossians 3 or Ephesians 4 or whatever, where the language is not just what has God done for you, but now put off, put on, strive, make every effort.

I think if I'm thinking about how I

If you do find it helpful, can you give our dollars to help support the people and the network behind it? Your gift helps us to make more gospel-centered resources available at churches across the nation.

Well, thank you very much for turning up.

That's a great encouragement to me.

In God's kindness, I've spent a lot of my ministry life in spaces where I'm training people specifically in ministry.

So I spent 16 years on the campus at the University of New South Wales, where I had a lot to do with the trainee program there.

And in the last decade, I've spent at Moore College, again, training people for ministry.

And so a lot of the last two and a half decades has been about thinking about how does transformation happen it's caused me to think both kind of from from kind of theology out and then from practice back in if I can put it like that and it's been actually a long process of trying to think through theology and practice together and how that actually affects what we do and how we engage as we seek to people people growing in their relationship with Jesus and in their honoring of him in life I have actually way more to say than I can get to say to you in the next kind of hour or so.

Is it different? Is it

With that in mind, and from a Reformed biblical perspective, how does preaching play a part? Is it central, or how does it play with play out with disoriented or grieving or

struggling? It is such a helpful question.

I want to say lots of things about that actually, but just stop me when we kind of...

I mean, well, one of the things that strikes me is I think suffering in the scriptures is a kind of crucible, right? It's a place that tests and refines, but it's also a place that reveals a lack of faith as well, right? So I do think that when you're in that space, it's a space that you will either grow through or it can actually sometimes be quite, can white ant or really kind of eat out your faith.

It's the moment when people will start asking questions and um that will send them down a rabbit hole that might actually lead in really unhealthy directions or it's a time when people really cling to the truths of what god has done for us in christ love his sovereignty and goodness even though they can't see or experience that really and they'll persevere and you'll see this kind of growth in in who they are and character and stamina so i think it's it's a moment that god is using to shape and mold people But my fundamental conviction is that what shapes and molds people is the spirit at work through the Word.

And so I want people who are in that space and will plead with people, just keep exposing yourself to the truth of who God is in Scripture.

But I think we need to remember when you're in that space, you're often not thinking super clearly or rationally.

How does that play into, especially this topic of preaching and suffering and avoiding just shallow content? when you're addressing these types of things.