Christ in You, the Hope of Glory, Col, 1:25-27

This morning we're continuing on in Colossians chapter 1 here, and unlike last week where we focused on one verse, we'll be looking at three of them, so a lot of ground to cover here. It's a full passage, there is a lot in it, and I think it gives us a real special perspective, so I want to take a look at it here this morning. One of the things that stands out, like we've seen in Ephesians and we've seen in Colossians, and this is particularly true of the first half of each of those books, is we see that pattern continuing where God is the one taking the action. You notice that. You look at the verbs and look at the way they're portrayed.

He says, I was made a minister. Paul didn't say, hey, pick me. As a matter of fact, he had exactly the opposite in mind. It was Paul's passion to pursue Christians to the death. He even testified himself to pursue Christians to the death, but the Lord said, I've got something else in mind.

And you see the Lord taking action, and you see the Lord bestowing on Paul. It was the Lord taking action there. Even concerning the mystery that we'll take a look at shortly, it was the Lord taking the action to hide to keep it undisclosed initially. The manifesting, when it was time to reveal what this mystery was, God took the action. God willed to make known. It is God who has the verbs, God who owns the verbs in this passage, as we've seen before. God is the one who takes the initiative, and that's the pattern that we see throughout Scripture.

All right, he starts off here and he says, of this church. Well, of course, we're just reading right out of this passage. Which church? This church? You know, what does that mean? He had explained in the passage we looked at previously, Colossians 124, his body, which is the church. And as we pointed out before, calling the church his body or the body of Christ is explicitly something that Paul brings forth in the book of Ephesians and the book of Colossians, that are supreme in bringing forth those truths, very clearly and very consistently taught in each of those books.

And he says, I was made a minister. As we pointed out before, God is the one who takes the action, isn't it? It's God's appointment. And as you look here, this word minister, and I think we ought to be careful about dropping into kind of stereotypes of what he means.

Basically, this is the word diakonos. It means servant. And people who read that, oftentimes that would be the first thought that their mind came to. A servant. It's used of epiphras, as we looked at some time ago, the guy who appears to be the human being responsible for carrying the message to Colossae and Laodicea and Heropolis and bringing the message to those places from Ephesus. Anyway, Epaphras is also called a diakonos, a servant. Now, he says, according to the stewardship. Now, we pointed out in the past, this word according to, if you can just kind of think of it, what does it mean? It's consistent with. Consistent with. That's the pattern he's trying to convey here.

He was given this servanthood by God consistent with And then he uses this word that's brought across here as stewardship, or the King James has here, a dispensation from God. It's one of the key words here, so we'll want to take a particular focus on it. It's oikonomia.

This is a common word in the New Testament times. People, when they heard that word, they said, oh, I know what that means. Unlike some of the words that we see in the New Testament where it seems almost like Paul invented or created the word, This is one where they'd look at it and they'd say, oh yeah, I've seen that repeatedly. Everybody would know what it meant.

It was also a part of a family of related words, and at some later point in time we'll take a look at that family. We'll take more of a brief look here this morning. The word family shows up throughout the New Testament, and the concept, including some of the synonyms, shows up throughout the Bible, even early in the Bible, even in the book of Genesis. Now Paul uses it in a special way, as we'll see here shortly.

Here's the basics of a stewardship. There's certainly more details, and we'll go into the details at some later point in time. Starts off, there's an owner of something. That owner wants to put somebody else in a position of responsibility. So someone else is made responsible for it. And then there is something over which that steward, the person responsible, is made responsible. So those three basic elements are part of this stewardship, this oikonomia that Paul's talking about.

The first example from the Old Testament we bring up, and because for centuries it was an arrangement that was well understood, and although not exclusively so, it was commonly done with a responsible servant, even an owned slave. And it went like this with Joseph in Genesis 39, There was this fellow named Potiphar who bought Joseph. Remember, Joseph's brothers had sold him to basically slave traders. The traders took him, and in Egypt, Potiphar, the chief bodyguard, if you will, for the pharaoh, had a certainly well-to-do household, and he had a household that he wanted somebody to be in charge of, and Joseph proved himself to be very responsible. So Joseph, Potiphar's slave, was the person set up to be responsible.

And what we see described there is that whatever Joseph did in his management of the things that he was given responsibility for, he did very well. So Potiphar put him in charge of his house and fields, everything that he had. It even describes that Potiphar didn't worry about anything except the next bite that he put in his mouth. Joseph took care of everything.

So this is a stewardship, an illustration out of the Old Testament. There is a similar kind of thing happening here. The owner of something is God. Now, we're talking about an owner of the highest degree, right? No greater owner than that. And God gave Paul a specific responsibility. Paul is one who is given this stewardship, this area of responsibility.

And it wasn't one he initially thought that he'd take, right? When he was on the road to Damascus, he had something else quite in mind. But God ultimately gave him this responsibility. And then finally, he said, okay, I'm giving you a responsibility in the church, explicitly taking the gospel into the Gentile lands, into places where there are both Jews and Gentiles, primarily Gentiles, and to give them a message that is explicitly for the church.

And so, that's his stewardship, and he's explaining this. Now, something to keep in mind, Paul is not just talking about himself. He's not just saying, boy, I'm Paul, and boy, you really got to listen to me, because I am cool. His point is not to draw attention to himself, but to say, this is how special the message is. God took the action at every step to make sure that you got it right.

And this is what I'm telling you. And there's another reason, we'll see here shortly, why this is critical that he tell them that. Because they're getting a very contrary message from the false teachers that have showed up on the scene in Colossae. So Paul explains that this is a stewardship, a dispensation as the King James has it, from God bestowed on me. It's a direct contact there. God is saying, Paul, you have this assignment. This is what I'm giving for you to do. It's God's action.

And to think about it, although certainly each of us has a stewardship of a different magnitude, that's really what the Lord has done to us, hasn't He? He has given us an assignment, something over which we are responsible, and our relationship with Him in that assignment is directly to Him. Alright, the next thing that he points out here, he says, This is an arrangement bestowed on me for your benefit. You are the ones who benefit from this. This is an arrangement intended to benefit you. This is what God set up.

It's not that God set this up just so Paul could get everything out of it. He says, I am here doing this by God's assignment to benefit you. That's what he's laying out to them. it appears, had some other motives in mind, and they were looking for personal benefit, and Paul clearly was not looking for that. Paul had a servanthood here. It was God's appointment, but for others.

All right, the next thing he says, so that I might fully carry out the preaching of the Word of God. Now, what's real interesting, what does he mean by that? The King James has it simply, you know, to fulfill. the Word of God. Let's take a look at what he's talking about there. The Greek word is plerao, and it means to the full extent or completion. But let's see, because Paul explains what he means by that in several different places. He says that we're going to carry out the Word of God.

The Word of God is a message from God. That's basically what we have when we have the Scriptures, isn't it? And we have Paul's explicit revelation that's a contribution to those Scriptures. As we pointed out before, some things are unique to Paul's teaching. Teachings that we don't get anywhere else, including the teaching, as we mentioned before, that's the body of Christ. The Church as the body of Christ is unique to Paul.

That is a part of the message that he's bringing to them. This Greek here reads literally, the message from the God. The message from the God is explicit. And one of the points we've made before is, why the God? Why the explicit statement? They had a bunch of gods that were there in the pagan culture, and he said, not those, this one, this particular god, the one who gave me the assignment, the god who has an explicit message for you, the god who operates differently from what these false teachers are conveying. Then Paul tells us about the revealing of that message from God, and he says, the mystery which has been hidden from the past ages and generations but has now been manifested to his saints.

This is the revealing process about that message. So if we look at the whole phrase there, let's put it together so that I might fully carry out the preaching of the Word of God. Think about it here. Paul spoke to the elders at Ephesus. This is the other church that we're reading the letter to, the book of Ephesians. Paul spoke to the elders, and this was his last time meeting with those elders. He met them in a town to the south called Miletus.

And as he spoke to them, he said, I gave you the whole purpose of God, or as the King James has, the whole counsel of God. He gave nothing back. It was the full content. It was everything. He didn't just give them little bits and pieces and slices. He said, I was with you teaching for three years and gave you the full sweep, full spectrum, the whole content of the Word of God.

The other thing that he made clear when we're studying Colossians 1.23, he was looking for a full geographical range for the Gospel.

Even as he wrote to the Romans, he says, I want to go to Spain. He's looking for a full geographical extent, and in order to carry that out, he had others that he sent off in different directions. He sent Titus into the area we now call Kosovo. He sent other people off, and as he moved on to places, he left others behind him to continue in a ministry of apostolic appointment.

He also makes clear, as we'll see in Ephesians and we'll see shortly as we go in Colossians here this next week, he also did not want to just bring believers to a place of salvation and say, see ya. Key point, isn't it? He didn't want to just say, we want to get people in the door and then move on. His goal was not to just make a lot of baby believers.

His goal was to see every person brought to spiritual maturity. He says every three times in this next verse that we'll cover next week. Every believer. He wants maturity among the entire body of Christ. He's aiming for that. So we see Paul wants the full content of all the teaching of the Word of God. He wants the full spread of the Gospel everywhere. Every believer brought to maturity, not just to an initial knowledge of Christ, but to an in-depth knowledge of Christ. That's his goal. That's what he's aiming for. It is so intense an effort on his part. He says he strains with everything that he's got. We'll see the magnitude of that as he explains it in these next verses.

In 2 Timothy, you can imagine, here's Paul's last letter. to Timothy, it's the last letter we have any record of, and he's writing in the last half of that letter, and what he says is, all scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for training in righteousness, so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.

This is not just academic, is it? This is not hypothetical. He doesn't want to just fill people's gray matter with this, He is looking for application. He says, God has inspired this to be applied. It is God's intent that this be inspired in order that it be lived. But there's another key point here.

He didn't just say, okay folks, here you go, there you got the whole Bible, here's the whole New Testament, now you know what to do, we'll see you in heaven. No, what he spelled out was, it is not my job to do it. It's not your job to do it either. It's the Lord's job.

That's why he would write to the church at Galatia and say, it's no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. He'd write to the church at Ephesus and say, it's His power. He'd write to the church at Philippi and say, it is His work mightily within me. Ephesians 3, that we'll get to before long here, 3.20-21, Now, to Him is able to do far more abundantly beyond that we ask or think.

And people initially think, okay, I'm looking for outside activity, right? Oh, God will do this miracle and that miracle and this other miracle, and He'll just move things out of the way and make miracles happen left and right. Well, we'll be crossing the Dead Sea and the Red Sea and every other sea. No. What do you see? He says, beyond all we ask or think according to the power that works within us. Ah, there it is. The chief miracle is not parting of seas or healing this or making that go away or that come into existence. The miracle is His work within us.

That's what He's aiming for. That's what all this is about. That's the phenomenal thing, the amazing thing that's absolutely invisible. That's what He's shooting for here. To Him be the glory in the church, in the church, and in Christ Jesus in all generations forever and ever.

So, I want to ask you something here. Just what do you consider to be a mystery? I've got this word mystery showing up here. So what do you consider to be a mystery? Maybe strange and bizarre shapes, and you're trying to figure out what it means. What's the symbolism of these strange and bizarre shapes? Maybe you look at some tunnel that's lighted on one end and goes down in some dark hallway on the other end. Maybe that is your idea of mystery.

He has this word mystery showing up twice. That is, the mystery which has been hidden from past ages and generations. And then in verse 27 we'll see it again. What is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles? It's a word he uses twice and that's not accidental, and he's not done using it either, as we'll see. This word mystery is musterion, and it shows up like this. This is from a word that we've seen, a verb, when we went through the last chapter of Philippians.

Muo means to shut the mouth, and so this mystery is based on the understanding of the word in pagan times, and went like this. The word was used for mystical truths in these pagan those who were being initiated into these pagan mystery religions were sworn to secrecy on penalty of death. You tell anyone, you swear to die. And so it was something that was very limited in who could hear it, and once you heard it, you couldn't tell anyone on penalty of death without them also going through this very special initiation procedure. for a very select few people, because not everyone could go through this. Paul turns the tables on the cultural use of the word. As a matter of fact, when he used this word, I think the Colossian mindset, when they read these words, and here he'd use one verse and then the next one, was shock. They knew that in that culture, if you tell a mystery, you've been sworn to secrecy on penalty of death. And here's Paul saying, I tell you a mystery! And they're going, huh? Because it was absolutely unthinkable that anyone would do that. Paul is amazing in what he does here.

So he says in verse 26, that is, the mystery which has been hidden from the past ages and generations, but has now been manifested to his saints. Think about it. Here's the past ages and generations. God creates the heavens and the earth. He creates man and places him upon the earth.

Is that the time to tell the mystery? No, not yet. Later on, mankind, having fallen, falls into terrible violence, the thoughts of his heart being only evil continually. Now that would be a good time to reveal the mystery, right? No, not yet. Later on, God calls Abraham out of Ur of the Chaldees, a very civilized place there, right near where Kuwait and Iraq come together. Sure, that would be a good time to reveal this mystery, right? No, not yet. Now, for 430 years to the day, the Israelites are in Egypt. They are slaves. They are in chronic, total slavery to the Egyptians. Now that would be a good time to reveal the mystery, right? Perfect timing, right?

No, not yet. Now when they get out of there, Moses leads them out, and he's got this first tablet from God, God's handwriting, if you will, finger writing, right on this tablet. Now that would be a perfect time to reveal the mystery. Of course? No, not yet.

Later on, here's Solomon building the temple, and here you have this grand temple, very impressive, the first permanent temple that Israel ever had. Now, wouldn't that be a good time? No, not yet. Alright, later on, centuries go by, the Jews have stumbled again, and so they have to get sent off to Babylon. Now, of course, then would be a good time, right?

No, not yet. You see, here's this mystery that was hidden from past ages and generations. God said, not yet, not yet. From past ages and generations, were things revealed by God? Yes. Did God have a purpose and a time in doing so? Yes, he did. But there was also purpose and timing in what happened here. So that's what you see here, past ages and generations, but now it's been manifested. Now, let's look at this.

It was hidden from the past ages. One of the things that's interesting, this is a perfect passive, it was completely hidden with that hiding intended to go on into the future until God interacts or takes action to change that perfect tense. It was going to remain hidden until God determined otherwise. It was by God's intent that it was going to continue being hidden until God revealed it.

Now, he says, After all these centuries, the centuries of time, various things happening, now is the right time, he says. So we have, of this church, I was made a minister according to the stewardship from God, and all this waiting through the generations until now, but now.

But now in the Greek, the English here has, just for the smoother English, but the Greek is but now, same sequence as we find and a number of other places, this phrase, but now, is typically used to mark the distinction between the way things were and some present state, after some key point in time. And the pattern that we see is that point in time varies, but this is a common use throughout the New Testament. And that pivotal point, that key point when things change, is either Christ's cross work, our belief in it, or in this case, God's revelation through the Apostle Paul.

But now this has been revealed. Okay? But now is used in all these passages in Paul's writings. What we see is it just basically occurs in almost every book. But now. But now. Because that time distinction is important. It is also used in the book of Hebrews as a time delineator. But now. And even 1 Peter, we see it in 1 Peter 2 a couple of times. It was an appropriate time. The Lord had laid things out.

The Roman Empire had provided political stability and excellent roads on which to carry the gospel. Roads enough to go two times around the globe and a perfect layout in order to say, okay, now is the time to spread the gospel. Another thing that brought it into focus was the Greek culture and specifically the Greek language. It brought about the exact proper language structure needed to explain the character of the gospel.

That's why God would say, now. Now is the time. And finally, the Jews who had been scattered throughout the Roman Empire and even beyond, their numbers were at least twice as many scattered around as there were in Israel. And these Jews had gone throughout and spread the Old Testament accounts, and the Old Testament itself, throughout these Gentile lands.

So now, now that the mystery that has been hidden from past ages has now been manifested to the saints, this is again the passive voice, God is the one who took the action to manifest there. So now I say, mysteries that are not mysterious. That's right, these are mysteries that are not mysterious. Paul's use of the word mystery is to reveal something previously unrevealed But the revealing of those truths is to reveal truths, and that revealing is done by God.

He is the one who takes the action. Us human beings are real glad about the things we can find out. Boy, we're proud of all the knowledge we can accumulate, and the rate of accumulation of knowledge is phenomenal in our day. However, there are things that only God can reveal. and there is a limitation. It is not because of our wisdom. It is not because of our expertise. It is not because of our intellectual sophistication that we found these things out. We found them out because God said, I'm going to reveal them. Man could not reveal them of his own.

Now, Paul uses this word mysterion in Colossians. We're going to see, although he uses it twice in this passage, he's not done. Chapter 2, he'll use it again, and again in Chapter 4. It's not a word he's going to let loose of, because it's important that those people understand it.

In each case, the mystery, the truth now revealed, is about Christ. Every time, the mystery has to do with Christ, and in one case we'll see it actually is Christ. Christ is the mystery revealed. There's a principle, and we've brought this up before, if you see something mentioned repeatedly in a book, Quite often it's because that's an issue with the people to whom it's been addressed. They needed to hear about Christ. They needed to have a focus upon Christ. And are we any different? No. No. Perfect book for us, right? The focus is upon Christ. What could be better?

Remember that the false teachers had come in with this Gnostic idea. The Gnostic idea was you've got a really good God and a really evil world. All matter is evil. And the only way they could explain that you could have Jesus come to this evil world was if the series of angels, just sort of by a cosmic accident, created Jesus. And so Jesus was a created being at the end of a whole emanation of angels.

And so here is what the Colossians are being taught. And so Paul's saying, no, no, no, you need to understand here. What he is teaching is very explicit. And so what he's saying, no, it was not this good God in a very evil world and a bunch of angels doing something that God had hardly anything to do. No, it was God explicitly revealing truth directly through the Apostle Paul about Jesus Christ whom He sent directly, and the world was not created by some evil angel but he told them earlier in this chapter that the world exists because Christ created it and sustains it. Exactly the opposite of what the Gnostic teachers were telling him. So Paul is correcting things here in this passage. He's saying this truth is here not because you've got a very small group of people who get to learn some secret truth. This truth is here because God decided to reveal it to a broad audience and those saints who respond to him in belief are those who get to get the message.

The false teachers at the Church at Colossae were saying things like, Jesus Christ was created by an angel distant from God. No, Jesus Christ was sent by God. They would say things like, Jesus didn't create the world, angels distant from God did. And so Paul corrects that by saying, no, Jesus created everything, and everything still exists because he continues to sustain its existence. They would say Jesus was only spiritual, not an actual physical being. So what he says is, no, Jesus came bodily.

In His body He suffered. John even comes against this when he says, this is the test. He says, Jesus Christ came in the flesh. That's the test. And finally, the Gnostic teachers would say, Jesus is fine, Or, here's the secret you need to know, but don't tell anyone. Paul comes around and says, here are all the things God has done, and tell everybody. The exact opposite.

He manifested it to his saints. As we look at this one here, the saints are the hagios, the ones made holy. They're set apart for his purpose. And notice the pronoun there, his saints. The saints are His. They belong to Him. They are ones worth relationship to Him. We're not those who are just scattered about with just hoping to have a relationship with the Lord. There's a possession there. God claims us as His. Whom God willed to make known. The will of God directed towards believers that we know the truth given in verse 27. Here's God. He's saying, all right, I control the universe. I want this to be revealed at the right time to the right people. Not yet. Not yet. Not yet. Now.

Okay, now I want all these saints, including the ones here at Holly Hills, to know this. This truth here. I want them to know it. The God of the universe wants us to know this. How about that? It's a mystery among the Gentiles. One of the things to look at here, this is fabulous glory, just a wealth of glory.

The people in Colossae were from a city that was in economic decline. Many of the people were finding themselves economically kind of pressed down, not that there were lots of wealthy people to begin with. Compared to the neighboring cities, they just weren't making it. Laodicea and Hierapolis were growing and abounding, and Colossae was heading downhill.

And what did he say? Don't worry about it. There's some riches of glory you need to know about. The people would be drawn to the prospect of riches, but there were two things different. These riches were spiritual and they were certain. The things that the Colossians were missing economically were not spiritual and they were certainly uncertain.

Okay, about this word glory, Paul is big on the word glory. He uses it over 80 times in his letters, about half the usage of the New Testament. Only Philemon, out of all his letters, doesn't include the word at least once. Many of the letters include it many, many more times. So why is glory such a big issue to Paul? Glory is basic to who God is. God does not have glory. He is glorious. It is his character. Glory is the radiant essence of who God is. God is also the source of all other glory.

What do you think of when you think of glory? Here are these people in the Lycus Valley and the people of Colossae, they're saying, well, glory, we had our glory days, you know, compared to Laodicea and Hierapolis, we're not doing too well. And so our glory has passed. And it's really passed now because now it's just a pile of unexcavated soil. But here is these riches known among the Gentiles. Paul is bringing this message here among the Gentiles.

Isaiah 49.6 speaks of this message. However, not this one.

It is told in the Old Testament that the Gentiles would indeed receive a message of salvation. But while that's clear, there's something new here happening, and there's the key insight here Although they knew that the Gentiles would receive salvation, the Jews always thought, well, that's because they're going to come through us. What was new, what was different here, is that God will send His Son, and these Gentiles will be indwelt, and I will deal with them directly on the same level as the Jews. That's new. That is not revealed in the Old Testament. There would be this new body created called the Church. totally unrevealed in the Old Testament.

Finally, Christ in you, the hope of glory. This is the focal point towards which this whole passage heads, isn't it? Christ in you, the hope of glory. So, in what ways is this true? In what ways is Christ in us, the believer? Christ dwells in us continually. We get that message out of more than one passage in the New Testament. Every believer, once you become a believer, is indwelt by the Lord.

2 Corinthians 13.5 makes Christ and the believers the key of whether or not someone is a believer. It is an acid test.

As we see this truth and we looked at Colossians 1.24, the persecution of the church has taken as a persecution of Christ. When Christ confronts Paul with, why are you persecuting the church? He says, why are you persecuting me? There is a personal connection, Christ in us.

And finally there, Paul is going to bring up this truth again in Colossians 3.11, where Paul makes the point that in Christ there is no distinction between believers, Jew, Gentile, any other distinction you want to come up with, but Christ is in all. There is an aspect of truth, however, which is progressive. Christ is being formed in the believer. That's the truth he writes in the book of Galatians. We are being changed from glory to glory as we behold him. Here is not just a static truth, but a process, isn't there?

We are predestined to be conformed to his image, Romans 8.29. Hope has been brought up here, the hope of glory. We've seen it in Colossians 1, 5, 23, and now verse 27. Hope is a consistent message. I suspect the folks in Colossae may have been getting discouraged. Since the hope Paul writes about is a certain hope, that's also an important clue for us.

There's no risk when we place our hope in a certain hope. If we're saying, I hope this happens, or I hope that happens, then there's a risk factor, isn't there? No risk here. It will happen. Finally, Christ in you, the hope of glory. Here we come to this word again, glory. So what comes to mind when you think of glory? Is it when the Broncos win the Super Bowl again? When Elway comes out of retirement? Is it when the Rockies take the World Series? Is it when Lance Armstrong wins his 37th Tour de France? when Michael Phelps really does swim the Atlantic Ocean.

Christ in you, the hope of glory. Our hope is certain, because while much on this earth is anything but certain, we will stand before the Lord. That's not a, I hope so, it's a reality. We will be conformed to His image, because it's been predestined that that will be so. Being like Him, for we'll see Him as He is, the conformity will be complete. Our being changed from glory to glory will meet its end at the revelation of His glory.

In Titus 2, 11-13, Paul is writing to Titus, and he gives a three-stage picture here for us, finishing off with verse 13, looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus. By the way, there's a verse that talks about Christ Jesus being God. Verse 11 talks about his first appearing, right, at the cross. He appeared, past tense.

Verse 12 talks about the present process and life of believers. Verse 13 points to that future glory, that hope, that blessed hope, that certain hope that we have. Remember when we looked at Philippians, it talked about bookends, things that were started at the beginning were also reflected at the end. The same is true here. At the end of Colossians, towards the end, he brings up a point here, when Christ, who is our life, is revealed, then you also will be revealed with Him in glory.

Christ in you, the hope of glory. That's what he's telling to a group of believers who are discouraged, a group of believers who have been given false teaching, a group of believers who have been distant from the main hub of activity in Ephesus. He's saying, don't worry about the distance. It's Christ in you that's the hope of glory. Don't worry about the fact that I'm in prison. That's not a problem at all. It's Christ in you is the hope of glory. Having a tough time coming up with financial resources? Christ in you is the hope of glory.

Let's pray. Lord, we thank you for that blessed hope that we have. We thank you that as we look back, as we look at the present, and especially as we look forward to your coming, to that day when our glory will match your own, because you have shared your glory with us. We'll be like you, for we'll see you as you are. We thank you for that blessed hope. In Jesus' name, Amen.