Make your way over to First Peter chapter one. We're going to be there in just a few minutes. We're going to make one stop before we get there, but I'll have that passage on the screen. In 2005 I began teaching high school seniors at 8am in the morning, and did that until this year. And I'll have to say that first Good morning was very reminiscent of the kind of reactions for an early morning study session, but I am so glad you're here this morning, and so glad to be able to join together. Opening a day up with studying the Word of God, I love that, and love doing it with other people.
I want to begin this morning with a question for you, and you'd probably need a little bit of time if we were going to go around and let everybody answer this, but I want you just to give it a quick thought. Who comes to mind when I ask this question, who is the most truly gracious person you have ever known? Who comes to mind? Is it your grandma? That's probably who it is for me, someone who was always kind and loving and gentle. Was it a neighbor, maybe a member from your childhood, who always had time for you? Was it an older member of congregation when you were just a kid? Now, let me follow that with another question. Why? Why did that person come to mind, and if we had time to develop that thought, I think the answer would go something like this, that this was someone who was always doing good for other people, with no expectation of anything in return, with maybe one exception. That maybe this kindness would help this person to be a better person. But as far as any kind of personal gain, nothing like that. Those are the people who make us smile when we think about them. Might be that person's been out of your life for many, many years, but they really still are there, because you think about them and you remember that graciousness, and I've thought about this some as to why that's the case, and I think the answer that at least I've developed for that is, is that the reason that these people are so near to us is because, in many ways, they're like this little microcosm of God. Here is a person who, in his or her life, is showing you the grand qualities of the grace of God in kind of a miniature form in his or her world, behaving like their father in heaven.
And so this morning I want us to talk about these ideas, the grace of God, the expectations that God has as a result of that grace, and in many ways, this morning's sermon is kind of a prequel to yesterday's. We're going to go back now, and we're going to get a little bit of the back story of what we're looking at that brings us to be a people who love with the grace of God, who demonstrate brotherly love to others. And I want to begin with the biggest, greatest concept there is when it comes to matters of salvation, and that is, we are saved by grace. I want to visit some of Paul's writings where he's going to make this point in a dramatic way. I'm going to be choosing a few verses from Ephesians chapter 2, and I want to start out with a rather shocking statement that the apostle writes to them when he says, "You were dead in your trespasses and sins." Now we know that's not talking about physical death by any means, but he says, before Jesus Christ came along, where you were, you had no future. You had no life with God. You were like these walking corpses, spiritually speaking. And the reason for that is you got on the other side of the fence, you went beyond where God told you to, and you sinned. You missed what God was intending for you. That is the story of every adult who has ever walked the face of the earth. When we think about what we've done, when we think about the sins we've committed, all of us can understand fully what the apostle is saying, but he doesn't leave it there. Thankfully. He goes on a little further in the text, and he says, "But God being rich in mercy because of the great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ." He says you were dead in these trespasses and sins, but now he says, you are alive by what Christ has done for you. And then, as Paul oftentimes will do, he kind of dramatically brings things to a stop, and he interjects a statement that he wants emphasized. And so here he makes this point. He says, Even when you were dead in your trespasses, you've been made alive together with Christ. Pause. And then he says, By grace, you have been saved.
But also, as typical in his writings, he doesn't leave that alone. He doesn't just abandon the thought. But as he continues on, he's going to talk about this grace, and he says, for by grace, you have been saved through faith. Also, this is not your own doing. It is the gift of God, not the result of works, so that no one may boast. He says, when you think about the grace of God, the way you're going to get that grace is through the conduit of your faith. You realize who he is, you realize who you are, you realize the tremendous need for him, and because of that faith that you have in Him, then you're going to come to his side. But the Apostle also knows humanity, and if he doesn't, the Holy Spirit sure does, who's inspiring this text. And he says, Let's make one thing absolutely clear, this is not your doing. You may come to this grace through faith, but don't you ever try to take credit for it. You ever known someone who, at first you thought was gracious, but then as you talked to him, it was always turning the conversation back to the good deed that had been done, kind of some undercover self promotion there? That's not a gracious person. That's someone who's self serving. And the Apostle says to us, you don't ever come to this point where you look at God and you look at this gift, and you think about what's been done for you, and you say, you know, I pretty much deserve that. No. And I don't think anyone who has ever really realized what it means to be in sin and what it means to be saved would let that thought come.
But here's the big point that I want us to see from this writing, Paul's shown the problem of sin. He's shown the gift of God. He's shown us that we are saved by God and not by our own works. But the point that is being emphasized here, as we're about to also see in First Peter, is that this grace that we're talking about, the concept of the love of God, that is significant enough that he would look on us in our miserable, pitiable conditions and say, I want to save those people is personified in Jesus Christ. It is Jesus who personifies and manifests this grace.
Let's look to First Peter, chapter one. After his initial introduction, Peter begins a section in which he's going to elaborate this. Let's read it together. Begin with me in verse three, "Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord, Jesus Christ, according to His great mercy. He has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus from the dead, to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled and unfading, kept in heaven for you who by God's power, are being guarded through faith for a salvation ready to be revealed in that last time, in this you rejoice, though now for a little while, if necessary, you have been grieved by various trials, so that the tested genuineness of your faith, more precious than gold that perishes, though it is tested by fire, may be found to result in praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ. Though you have not seen him, you love him, though you do not now see him, you believe in Him, and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory, obtaining the outcome of your faith, the salvation of your souls. Concerning this salvation the prophets who prophesied about the grace that was to be yours, searched and inquired carefully, inquiring what person or time the Spirit of Christ in them was indicating when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the subsequent glories. it was revealed to them that they were serving not themselves, but you, and the things that have been announced to you through those who preach the good news to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven, things into which angels long to look." You'd be hard pressed to find more beautiful writing than that, not only stylistically, but so much more that grand theme of what God has done for us, concisely, neatly, excitedly, enthusiastically recorded by the apostle Peter.
Prophets were commissioned so that we could believe. We were given things that angels desired to look into. And all of those things are known in the face of Jesus Christ. So then for those of us who have took the Lord up on his offer, we understand that we have been sanctified in baptism through Jesus blood. Isn't it sad that baptism, which should be the most unifying thing of Christianity, is one of the most debated. But yet, if you'll just put preconceptions away and read these texts on baptism, what you find is God taking this vile, wicked, dead in his sins person, and through His grace and His mercy, saying, when you go into the waters of baptism, there I am seeing that you trust me. And as I brought people through the Red Sea to safety, and as I brought people through the Jordan River to safety, I'm going to bring you through the waters of baptism to safety. Clean, pure, that old life, dead, buried and gone. That is the grace that we see in Jesus Christ. That's the beauty of what we find.
But it's interesting that Peter doesn't stop it there. He certainly emphatically makes the point that we are saved by this grace of God. But then he continues on, and he says, I want to tell you a little bit more about this grace, but this time it's going to be somewhat in the future, I want to go to verse 13 now, but for the moment, I'm going to skip over the first part of that verse and just go to the the last part, where we'll pick up verse, the first word of verse 13. And let's jump to the end, where he says, "Therefore, set your hope fully on the grace that will be brought to you at the revelation of Jesus Christ". So, Peter has now taken us from the beginning of our walk with Jesus Christ, when we come up out of the waters of baptism, sins forgiven, he's now taking us to the end, or the beginning, however you want to look at it. And it says in verse 13, this, that there is going to be grace that you are going to see at the revelation of Jesus Christ. That's the word apocalypse. Now, isn't it something that in our culture, we immediately start thinking of nuclear bombs and zombie robots and that kind of thing, that the apocalypse is coming. That's not it. Apocalypse just simply means you're getting the whole story now. We understand that, even from our culture, don't we? I don't go to see many movies. I don't watch a whole lot, even at home, but every once in a while, maybe there's a book that I've read or a storyline I've heard about, and they're going to make a movie into it. And there are people who are so skilled at making movie trailers, they get the right music, they get the right voice, and they'll pick out just enough of that movie in maybe 30 seconds to get you to say, I can't wait to see that movie. And you know, oftentimes, maybe it's this month we're watching it, and then at the end of it, it'll say, coming in January. Oh no, we got to wait all this time to see. What they've done is they built anticipation. Well, that may be a clever marketing campaign, but when we talk about things of significance, that is exactly what the Apostle Peter's doing here. He's saying, you know you understand about the grace of God. You've understood it at your baptism. You know that you've been made alive now. But I want to let you know that there is something even greater on the horizon. That, when Jesus Christ, in His fullness, is revealed to you, set your grace on that. Set your hope on that grace to be revealed at the coming of Jesus Christ.
John gives us a glimpse, kind of like John does a movie trailer. You read that opening part of Revelation and here is Jesus standing in his glory, and it's almost too much for John to comprehend. And what Peter is saying, just wait. The Apostle Paul agrees with that, as he's writing to the Ephesians in chapter two, he says, "And He raised us up with Him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of His grace and kindness toward us in Christ, Jesus." You and I currently, right now, at this very moment in time, if we have known the grace of God, if we are Christians, we are seated with Christ in the heavenly places. That's what Paul is saying. And yet we look around and we say, I don't know about that. This, this world doesn't quite look like the heavenly places to me, but what the apostle is saying is, is your salvation is so sure, it is so confident that you can say, I am now seated with Christ by the grace of God. Over the years, some have coined the expression the already, but not yet, and that's what we've got here. We are there, but yet, there are greater things to come. And maybe the apostle is giving us kind of a double whammy in this verse, and he's saying, however this long, this world continues to spin, however many generations come by, every generation is going to have their opportunity to know Jesus Christ. Don't you always hate it when you hear people say, Oh man, the world's getting so terrible. Nobody believes in Jesus anymore. We are so American centric. We look at our citizens and we think, Oh man, nobody's interested in the Gospel. Go to Africa, go to Asia, there are people who are hungering and thirsting, as there always will be. And so the Apostle says, in the coming ages, that's going to be shown. But maybe he's also giving us a whiff of eternity here. That he's saying when that final unending age begins, that ever present moment in time you are going to find there the immeasurable riches of the grace of Christ. It's like an unending journey into all of these great things that we know now already, but how much more to come?
So, then this grace Peter and Paul tells us is going to be known in the coming of Jesus Christ. So, here's what we've got. We've got grace that's known at our salvation. I am freed from my sins. I have been made whole. I've been washed in the blood of the Lamb. However, many expressions we can come up with that we know that grace. But he's also saying that grace is also going to be revealed at the coming of Jesus, at his apocalypse. Now, as we're people who are saved by grace, looking for that coming grace. How do we do that? Well, Peter answers that for us. And so, as we think about setting our hope on Grace, let's go back to verse 13. Let's pick up our two lines that we didn't read earlier. When he says, first of all, "therefore preparing your minds for action." Or as we mentioned yesterday, we go back to our old favorite expression, gird up the loins of your mind. Nothing's going to trip us up. We're not going to let anything get in the way, because we've been saved by grace. But yet we are eagerly anticipating that revelation of Jesus Christ in full grace and times to come. So Peter says, gird up the loins of your mind and you make sure that there is nothing that is going to trip you up spiritually. When you see the temptation, start praying. When you got the hard times, deal with them as God would have you.
But he continues, and he says also being sober minded. Almost always when we hear the word sober, it's going to be in contrast to intoxicated. Why do people choose to be intoxicated? As far as I can tell, the Bible only uses intoxication in a good way once that's over in the book of Proverbs, when the father is telling his son, don't go after the adulterous woman be intoxicated with the love of your wife every other time I believe, unless I've missed something there, it's in a negative sense, because people become intoxicated to forget sometimes. Maybe you have dealt with a drunkard in your life, father, mother, brother, uncle, grandparent. If you had an up close and personal relationship, you know what that's like. Maybe it's someone who just kind of can't face the reality of their existence, and so they're trying to find forgetfulness in the bottom of a bottle, or maybe it's someone who's wanting kind of a different notch of reality. That's what a lot of our drugs do, right? Where they take us to kind of this state where everything is happy and maybe even seeing things that we think are great things. What they're doing, though, every time, is they're distorting reality, which is one of the most dangerous things you can do. That's why we're told, be sober minded, the devil is a roaring lion seeking whom he may devour. We want our full faculties with us when we are facing these things. And so, Peter is here saying you've got to allow nothing to destort your reality. You've got to make sure you're understanding fully what's going on, understanding fully what it means to serve God, understanding fully what the devil is trying to do to you. So, he says, gird up the loins of your mind, be sober minded. Allow nothing to give you the false hope, allow nothing to cause you to lose that hope. And that is very easy to say in an air conditioned church building to an audience who's listening.
But when reality hits, we know, if we're honest with ourselves, that it's a challenge to keep this mindset. When we consider all of the things that happen in our lives, sometimes there is a tremendous amount of pressure to lose that hope, to lose the hope that's set on that grace that we knew at our baptism, to lose sight of that hope of the grace to be revealed. How many different blanks could we put in there? You ever known somebody who at 21 had their future completely planned out? Want to get this degree, I'm going to move to this area, going to get this job, and something really just out of the blue happens. If you're not careful, that can destroy you. Finally reach a point where it's like, I can I can retire. I was talking to a lady the other day, I was standing in Walmart looking at something. She was there picking up something for her husband, and she said, I need to ask you a question. It wass about a razor or something like that, I remember what it was. But she said, My husband has Parkinson's. He's never wanted me to shave his face before, but now he wants me to. She said he got it 10 months after he retired. Said we planned all these travels, and here we are. Isn't that something? All the great plans, all the things we're going to do, all the things we're going to be and the one thing that we can count on with absolute certainty in this life is that there is nothing that's absolutely certain with the exception of God Himself and His promises. And so, the mindset that we've got to have here is one that doesn't get too torn up about what's happening right now in time. We deal with it with sobriety, to borrow the worn out old expression from our times. It is what it is, right? It's what we're dealing with, but we never can allow it to get us off track. That is the foundation of what it means to be a Christian. That is the foundation of that saving grace, and it's reaching forward to that promise to come.
So, here we are. We've got Grace at our salvation. We've got the promise of grace that's going to be revealed at time to come. So, for the last part of our study this morning, what I want to do is to talk about that middle part. now. I've become a Christian, but yet I've not seen Jesus Christ fully revealed. What does that mean, then, for saved people who are awaiting the revelation of Jesus, what does that mean for us as we anticipate his return. Peter helps us with that. As we continue on, he's going to say in verse 14, "As obedient children." If you're a parent, that's a wonderful expression, isn't it? Will your children mind? So, the Apostle says, I have told you about this grace, set your mind, be sober minded, look forward to it, but in the meantime, As obedient children. But he puts it in a negative doesn't he? He says, "Do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance." He says, the one thing you got to make sure that you don't do it's kind of look over your shoulder and say, maybe that wasn't such a bad life after all. That life before I found the grace of God. You ever had that happen to you before? I'm not talking about you personally, but someone you've worked with. I suspect that most men who have preached for any length of time would answer quickly to that. But isn't that sad? I remember a young man showed up at Gooch Lane on a Wednesday night. Never met him before. He said, can we study? I said, meet me in my office in five minutes. And that shocked him. He thought I'd put him off. And he came in, we opened up our Bibles, we studied. He said, I want to be a Christian. I said, Are you sure? I'm sure. We went through it. I felt like he knew what he was talking about, he flourished, couldn't get enough. In fact, his wife, at first, was very antagonistic, and he would get in trouble if she found out he was studying with me, and she'd track him on his phone, and if he forgot to turn the tracker off, he'd she'd call just really, he'd do it anyway. She became a Christian. But then they started looking in the rear view mirror, first her and then him. And excuses were made, and we want to find a church more suitable to us. And you know how the story goes? Peter says, Don't do that. What you were, you don't want to be again. You don't want to put on the dirty clothes. He says, instead not returning to that pre-Grace life, but instead choosing to be holy in all your conduct.
Are you old enough to have gotten the conduct grades on your report card? You remember, talks too much, plays well with others, and the teacher would score you on that. Well, when you looked at the composite of that, what that was communicating to parents was, this is what I'm seeing every day in your child. And you know, a child maybe that talks too much, it's not a bad thing, right? But if you start seeing problems, then the parents being told, you need to deal with this. You need to deal with that behavior. I think that's what Peter's saying. He's saying, The Lord is looking at your conduct. And he's saying, Am I seeing someone who is desiring to be holy as I am holy. Now, how does that happen? What does that look like? Well, the apostle Paul helps us out with that. As he writes to Titus, he says, "For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions." There we go, putting that pre-Grace life away. "To be self controlled, upright, live godly lives in the present age, waiting for the blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Jesus Christ. Who gave Himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for Himself, a people for His own possession, who are zealous for good works." That's exactly what Peter just said. And the Apostle Paul is writing to this man who's preaching, and he's saying, You need to make sure you understand this, and you need to make sure this is what you're teaching. Put the wickedness away, but then catch on fire for doing these good works for God. And so then, if I am zealously pursuing these things in my life, what I'm going to be is holy as God is holy, not for my glory, for his. And anxiously anticipating his return.
Now, there's three dangers we got to watch out for in all this. What do we think about the grace and the holiness that's expected and desired of us before that final grace is revealed? The first of those is we never need to come to the point of believing that grace means that holy conduct is not required. That since I've been saved by grace, really doesn't matter what I do, because nothing can take that salvation away. I want to to read with you what the Apostle Paul had to say to that. And I'm going to use the King James version here, because I believe it catches the flavor of his remarks, probably better than any of the other translations. He says in Romans chapter five, beginning in verse 21 that, "if sin hath reigned unto death, even so might Grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life by Christ, Jesus, our Lord. What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound? God forbid." Can't we just keep on sinning? I mean, God is so great. We'll do something terrible. He'll do something good. Everybody can see that. Paul says, Are you out of your minds? God forbid that kind of thought. How shall we that are dead to sin live any longer in them? This business of saying, it really doesn't matter what I do is never what God has intended for us to believe. So, as we think about that, those the New Testament's telling us, that those who are saved by grace are to be dead to sin. Now, that does not mean that we're never going to have those moments where we sin. We know we've got those, but what it does mean is I am never going to have a lifestyle that doesn't really care about whether I stay faithful or not because I'm so sure of my salvation, there's nothing that can pluck me from the hand of God. To say that is to say I believe in cheap grace.
I referenced Detrich Bonhoeffer yesterday. He has a very interesting story. He lived in Germany in the 1930s and we know what was going on as the Nazi Party was rising to power, and the Germans were either supporting it, many of them are turning a blind eye to it. And Bonhoeffer was one who quite loudly proclaimed things during this time. And I don't know if he came up with the term cheap grace, but he used it in his 1937 book, the cost of discipleship. And I want to read you just a line from the book. He says, "this is cheap grace, the preaching of forgiveness without requiring repentance. Baptism without church discipline. Communion without Confession. Cheap grace is Grace without discipleship. Grace without the cross. Grace without Jesus Christ." I don't know everything Bonhoeffer included us and meant for us to get out of that statement. But what I get from it is him saying to us, you don't ever take this lightly. You don't ever look at your relationship that you have gotten by the grace of God, and you just treat that in such a way, flippant way, that as long as as you're doing just a couple of different things, you'll be all right. No. And isn't it sad that the Protestant world is just eaten up with that idea. That once you are saved, that salvation can never be lost. Studying with a young couple, it went terribly. I kind of expected it would just from the whole situation and their mindset, and I was trying to stick on one topic, and they were wanting to bounce around, and I remember the young lady said, so just tell me, do you think you can lose your salvation? I said yes. She kind of rolled her eyes. That's what many are dealing with. That belief that grace is going to cover everything and you can just keep on living like you've always lived.
Now, let's go to danger number two. Danger number two is on the opposite end of the spectrum, and that's believing that holy conduct is the means of your salvation. And I must say, we've got to be really cautious when we talk about this, because holy conduct does indeed impact our salvation. I think about that from Matthew 25 Jesus says, you know what? I was naked and you didn't clothe me. I was hungry, you didn't feed me. I was thirsty, you didn't give me a drink. I was in prison, and you didn't visit me and here's this group on his left that are just exasperated. Lord, when did we ever see you naked or hungry or thirsty or in prison? He says, did you see these of my people, and you did nothing for them. Well, that was doing nothing for me. Depart from me. Oh, yes, holy conduct is essential. But here's the danger. The danger comes in believing that my holy conduct negates the need for grace. That if I can do enough, good, God's going to be okay with me. And so, sometimes that can get very haughty, can it? I think about the parable of the father and his two sons. One of them goes off waste his money. Father's divided the inheritance between them. And then we get this picture of the older brother who is so put out with all this. Son's back and they're partying and happy and feasting. Son standing on the outside of the house. You ever notice that? He's on the outside, won't come in. Father says, what's going on here? In Luke 15:29, the older brother answered his father, first of all, very disrespectfully when he said, "Look." Fathers, what would you do if your son started with that to an answer? Think that's what we're trying to get the point Jesus is making. "Look. These many years I have served you and have never disobeyed your command, yet you never gave me a young goat that I might celebrate with my friends." Really? You have never disobeyed a father's command? I don't care how good as gold your little tyke is. In 18 years with you, there has been a command broken, and that's the case here. That's the point Jesus wanting us to see. Here's a man who's so full of himself that he says, I've never done anything wrong, and yet you never do this for me. Well, what we got to realize is the older brother was no more deserving of the inheritance than the younger brother was. This was their father's life's work, not theirs. Both of them were being given a very generous offering of grace, and neither of them respected it. That's what we must be careful of, of coming to this point that we see no need of grace for ourselves, because we've got it figured out. And really we don't believe that others are entitled to it. After all, if they were, they would act more like us, wouldn't they? See, the danger there? That we come to a point of elevating ourselves above God. So, in the one case, you've got the false idea of grace is going to cover everything. Doesn't matter how I live. On the other extreme, you've got the danger of believing that good conduct is my way to salvation, that if I can just get enough in that celestial bank account past the mark, I'll be okay.
Let's talk about the third one. And maybe it should 2B, because it kind of ties in a bit with with this second one, but a very different perspective. And that is believing there is very little hope for salvation. And I would say of all three of these. This is the one I have experienced for sure, the most. And those who I have talked to experience the most. And it is the total lack of a confident salvation. The phrase usually goes something like this, I have just, I've not done enough. I've fallen so far short, I know that that God is probably not pleased with me. I think doctors tell us you can't worry yourself to death, but I saw a man I'm pretty sure did that over this point. Cried, wept, wanted to talk, wanted to confess every week. Are you like that? You read all these passages on the grace of God. You trust what he says. You look at yourself and you say, I'm so far short. I'm just so beyond and what that is, is it's the total opposite of Peter's assurance. It's the total opposite of what he's telling us that we can expect the revelation of Jesus Christ to bring and yet, when we think about the revelation of Jesus Christ, it kind of makes our stomach hurt a little bit. What if right now? Oh, no, I'm not ready. I've not done enough well. That may be a true statement if you're not a Christian. Think about it. But if you are, that is not how God wants you to live in this period as you're awaiting the revelation of Jesus, Christ, He wants you to have confidence in him. Because, after all, if you could save yourself, you wouldn't need His grace, would you? But yet he said, I've given you this grace so that you can look confidently toward your future.
So, with those dangers behind, we are awaiting the revelation of Jesus Christ. We are a people whose hope is grounded in the steadfast love of God. Listen to what the Psalmist tells us. Psalm 147, 10 and 11, he says, "His delight is not in the strength of the horse nor in the pleasure of the legs of a man, but the Lord takes pleasure in those who fear Him, in those who hope in His steadfast love." God's love for you is not like the stock market. It's not up one day and down the next. It's steady. And that's what we need to be hoping for. We are set apart during this time when we've come to know the grace of God and yet await it, and we seek to conform to the holiness of God. To be holy as He is holy. And to conduct ourselves in such a way so that every action is demonstrating a transformed heart. That's what God wants from us. And when I can come to that point, I can trust that in those bad times in my life, God has not abandoned me, and if I'm in sin, he's going to chasten me, and he stands like that father willing to forgive me. And when I can come to believe this with all my heart, I can then say, Come Lord Jesus. I can say, I want You to return right now. Because with that excitement, I'm at a point where I say I can't wait to explore the eternal riches of the grace of Jesus, Chris. Grace, holiness and grace. That's what God has given us, and that's what he wants from us, so that we can be a people who can not only be like him now, but can be with him in that eternal moment. Thank you so much for your good attention this morning.
