Well, the Lord has been faithful to us
again this year, and I understand not only
our times of ministry in the morning and
the evening, but the fellowship times in the
afternoon have been very precious.
It's good to be together with the saints,
the encouragement we receive, the joy of worshiping
together, and just finding out what's going on
in other places.
I was particularly blessed last night by Lance's
message, and then again this morning by our
brother Stephen, and I am charged with the
last message after the messages have all been
given.
But the Lord is faithful, and if he
is with us tonight, as I believe he
is, he still wants to share with us
some new angles and then just some simple
things before we leave.
So we want to turn once again to
Ephesians chapter 1, where we look at these
verses and add to it the last verses
of the chapter.
Ephesians chapter 1, verses 9 and 10.
He made known to us the mystery of
his will, according to his kind intention which
he purposed in him, with a view to
an administration suitable to the fullness of times,
that is the summing up of all things
in Christ, things in the heavens and things
on the earth.
And then to the end of the chapter,
where in verse 22 it says, And he
put all things in subjection under his feet,
and gave him as head over all things
to the church, which is his body, the
fullness of him who fills all and all.
And then I'd like us to go all
the way to the end of the Bible,
to Revelation chapter 22, verse
17.
The spirit and the bride say, Come.
Let the one who hears say, Come.
And let the one who is thirsty come.
Let the one who wishes take the water
of life without cost.
Let's just have another word of prayer.
Our Father, we thank you for the riches
of the times we've had together.
Indeed, it's a blessed thing for brethren to
gather together in unity.
Thank you for your presence, for your mercy,
for your grace, for your quickening power.
Thank you for your protection and the encouragement
we've received.
Now we come again, once again, unto you
dependent upon the Holy Spirit, asking that you
would give us further room and an appetite
to know more about our glorious Lord.
Help us, Lord, in this hour.
Quicken us, our tired bodies.
Refresh us.
Let our hearts hear even what you're speaking
to us.
We thank you for all that you have
done for us already and realize, as always,
we're in the midst of a great move
of God.
Oh, give us eyes and ears to see
what you're doing in these days.
We pray in Jesus' precious name.
Amen.
Here we see at the very end of
the Bible a summing up.
Here we see the church in such a
position of fullness that she is called the
bride and she is gathering, gathering along with
the Holy Spirit saying, saying, come, let him
who wills come, let him who is thirsty
come.
The church in fullness gathering in her beauty
by the Holy Spirit.
And we believe that the days are coming
that the church will be in such a
place that her invitation will be listened to.
You know, we all probably have tried battling
and sharing and preaching the gospel to our
friends.
Some of you perhaps in some kind of
an outreach meeting, you know, a lot of
times we receive a lot of resistance, but
in this tremendous last day and in this
tremendous mega gathering that our God is doing
to glorify his son.
It's true that there are those who are
evil, those who prefer darkness rather than light.
But the strange thing is we're finding all
around the world and also here in America
and even where I live up in New
York, that there are many hungry people who
are longing to see some light and some
truth and some faith and some love.
And you don't even have to fight with
them.
You just need to tell them that Jesus
is gathering them to himself as a shepherd
gathers a straying sheep.
And these people respond.
Sometimes I go up to a time square
church.
You know, many of you have heard of
David Wilkerson and still he is alive.
And even though elderly sometimes shares magnificent messages,
but no matter who's sharing there, they usually
have an appeal at the end where they
gather people up.
And there were, there's a thousand people meeting
there three times on Sunday.
And when they just put out their hands
and say, now who, who is broken, but
wants to come to the only one who
can heal you.
Oh, people pile out of the balcony and
out of the lower place and just come
down and fall down on the floor in
the front, they kneel, you know, and people
come and pray with them in that evil
city, New York city.
But there's broken people who just are longing
for somebody to say, come home, come on
to me, all you that are weary and
heavy laden.
I'll give you a rest.
This is not just a local phenomenon.
As we shared in our first message, there's
a great mega gathering by the Lord of
the harvest over these last 30 years, uh,
from 1970 to the year 2000, I presented
some statistics of amazing numbers of conversions across
the world in places whose names were not
even quite sure where they are on the
map.
And the Lord is doing wondrous things, gathering
people from the North, the South, the East,
and the West, gathering them into his kingdom.
Oh, he is gathering even today.
And we, whether we're Christians or maybe you're
just a guest here tonight, perhaps you feel
by the spirit he's gathering you.
You know, at times Christians are rebel sheep
out alone somewhere on a Hill.
And our Lord is always calling you home,
gathering you to himself.
There was ever such a sense of love.
We get, it's when we see Jesus who
has continued compassion now upon those sheep that
are lost and straying around in the New
York city, everywhere I go, I see people,
people straying, you know, uh, actually Julie and
I would just walk around in our neighborhood,
which is quite a popular tourist place.
And as people would maps upside down and
people just lost, they have no idea they're
going the wrong way.
They don't know people are lost all the
time.
Well, we, we get to direct people all
over the place, but how wonderful if they
all came to Jesus, that's the hope that
they really need.
So anyway, we looked at this wonderful harvest
and it's surely a sign of the last
days that so many people are being saved.
This tremendous, if the statistics are right.
And if I even reduce it a little
bit, just to be conservative, there's going to
be 50 million more harvested this year, 50
million.
And over half of them, not by denominations
and big ministries and big evangelistic and big
mission groups, but over half of them will
be saved and brought into a little house
church somewhere, an unregistered church, not even a
church just well in Russia, they call it,
uh, you know, I go to this one
place, they've got the 300 of these things.
They call the house of prayer because it's
just a house where somebody lives and people
come there and they pray and worship and
preach the gospel.
And just millions of people being gathered by
the Lord, even now at this point.
But as we have heard, in fact, this
morning was so wonderfully by our brother Steven.
And as we've been reminded when Jesus, when
it says that in the dispensation of fullness
of times, God would gather all things or
sum up all things in Christ, both which
are in heaven and which are in earth.
We know that the Lord and his final
purpose has something much more than to just
gather sheep into a pen.
As it were, he wants to gather us
up into himself.
There is this tremendous work going on right
now.
And especially among Christians, there is this transition
where having been gathered unto the Lord, we're
being gathered into the Lord where we've been
gathered to the Lord and have experienced all
of his goodness and grace, and now being
gathered into his life to the very place
where we can say with sure testimony that
Christ is our life.
So you saw the masterful development of examples
in the new testament this morning from our
brother, as you shared with us, the Galatians
who were holding onto a thing.
What was the thing they had?
Justification by faith, right?
And because of that, somebody was coming along
and saying, oh, you need to be circumcised
for justification.
And they were getting confused, holding onto that
doctrine, you see.
And Paul was saying, but what you really
need to see is that you've been clothed
with Christ, who is your justification.
You see, and once you see that it's
not the doctrine of justification, but it's the,
it's Christ who is your justification, makes a
lot of difference.
Did you catch that?
That's being, that's when Christ becomes the sum
of your justification.
And then he went on to talk about
the Corinthians who were called saints, but they
seemed anything but saints.
And he was trying to tell the Corinthians,
now it's not a question of being sanctified
through effort or something, but it's that God
has made Christ sanctification to you.
It is Christ, our sanctification.
And to the Colossians, it is Christ, our
perfection.
And to the Philippians, it is Christ who
is our life.
And in second Corinthians, our ministry is the
writing of Christ and the impartation of Christ
into a person's life, not just the ministry
of the word.
So throughout our Christian life, whether it's the
ministry that we're involved in, or whether it's
these things that we've understood about our salvation,
the Lord wants to make them real in
himself so that we all say Christ is
our life.
So now that's a whole spiritual summing up
the Lord's trying to do.
Now, you know, we've been talking about that
and you've heard even about that freshly this
morning.
Then we also shared about the fact that
the whole of scripture speaks of Christ, shows
us Christ from the very old Testament through
the new Testament.
Well, now we want to go back to
Ephesians because I feel we should pick up
some pieces just so that we can all
understand some of these great terms that are
being used.
The summing up of all things in Christ,
the fullness as is presented to us.
When we read in Ephesians and we saw
that in the fullness of times, God would
sum up all things in Christ.
As we said, the first night, the actual
Greek there says literally head up all things
in Christ.
So now if you were a Greek, as
they were in the days when Paul was
writing this, and you read that in Ephesians
and then came to verses 22 and 23
of chapter one, you'd immediately get the association
here.
When it says Christ has been made head
over all things to the church, it's that
same word kephalos that was used back in
chapter one, verse 10 heading up.
So part of the heading up process is
that Christ begins by being head over all
things to the church.
Now we don't always take that seriously, but
he seriously wants to be the Lord and
master and head over everything that happens in
the church.
And so this is how the church is
expressed in its fullness.
He has head over all things to the
church, which is his body, the fullness of
him who fills all in all.
So he is heading up the church.
Now, you know, the sister letter to Ephesians
is Colossians.
And if you look over in Colossians chapter
one, we see a further thought regarding this
whole matter of fullness and heading up in
Colossians.
We see that this gathering up is not
only involved with sinners being saved, being gathered
up, not only involved with the church being
gathered up under his headship, but this gathering
up is larger.
It involves the whole of creation.
And Paul, by revelation has seen that Christ
not only was the creator of the world,
but now all things are being summed up
in him.
Look there in Colossians chapter one, as it
talks about his, his relation to creation as
the creator.
And then as the summation verse 15, he
is the image of the invisible God, the
first born of all creation for by him,
all things were created, both in the heavens
and on earth, visible and invisible thrones and
dominions or rulers or authorities.
All things have been created through him and
for him.
And he is before all things.
And in him, all things hold together.
He is also head of the body of
the church.
He's the beginning, the first born from the
dead so that he himself will come to
have first place in everything.
For it was the father's good pleasure for
all the fullness to dwell and him and
through him to reconcile all things to himself.
And there we get the sense that what
the Lord is doing is not only heading
up sinners to himself and heading up the
church as it's head, but now heading up
creation, reconciling creation, bringing creation as a whole
into fullness, taking this natural creation and through
the process of his redemption and reconciliation, making
that which is natural spiritual.
Now, this is a tremendous cosmic gathering.
This is going way beyond us now, as
we understand that he is the one who's
basically bringing about a heading up of all
creation.
One day, even as we consider the sun,
the center of our solar system, we'll all
understand that Christ is the center of all
creation.
He will be in charge of everything.
He'll be the source of everything.
And he'll be the cause of everything.
And he'll be the purpose of everything clearly
seen.
But Paul has already seen this revealed a
cosmic summing up.
Creation has found its stack pole in Christ.
And it all makes sense when you look
at Christ in the center.
But not only that, Colossians goes on to
show that there's a micro cosmic gathering in
our lives, in our individual lives.
So in chapter three, we see in verse
four.
Well, we should start in verse three, for
you have died and your life is hidden
with Christ and God.
When Christ, who is our life is revealed,
then you also will be revealed with him
in glory.
When Christ, who is our life, that's why
we're seeking the things above.
We realize we're dead.
Our life is now hid with Christ and
God.
We can't quite see what our life is
yet.
It's something in process.
But when Christ, who is our life is
revealed, we will be revealed in glory.
He's taking our lives and making his life
the sum of our life in this wonderful
way.
And then he touches again as he's sharing
about these things.
He talks about this new man.
And by this new man, he's talking about
the church as one new man.
And so as he's defining it there in
chapter three, we see in verse 10 and
have put on the new man who's being
renewed to a true knowledge according to the
image of the one who created him.
That means that the new man, namely the
church, is being created in the image of
Christ.
A renewal in which there is no distinction
between Greek and Jews, circumcised and uncircumcised.
He's still talking about the new man.
So you see that's not an individual new
man.
It's a corporate new man.
Circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free
man.
But Christ is all and in all.
One day Christ will fill the church with
his glory.
Christ will be all and in all.
All the brothers and sisters belong to Christ.
And he wants all of the brothers and
sisters to be full of Christ.
This is the process, the process unto fullness,
the process unto the summing up that we
notice here in the scriptures.
We also see that this process in the
church is vital to that final fullness of
all creation.
Again, we know these verses, but let's look
in Romans chapter 8.
In Romans chapter 8, Paul talks about this
tremendous yearning inside and the yearning also in
creation for God's work to be done.
But first it has to start among us.
And then the whole creation is set free.
In verse 18, Paul says, I consider that
the sufferings of this present time are not
worthy to be compared with the glory that
is to be revealed to us.
For the anxious longing of the creation waits
eagerly for the revealing of the sons of
God.
Oh, when God's children are transformed, our sons
of glory, creation is waiting for that.
For the creation was subjected to futility, not
willingly, but because of him who subjected it
in hope that the creation itself also will
be set free from its slavery to corruption
into the freedom of the glory of the
children of God.
And so now we see that there's yet
a third expression to express this macro gathering
that God is doing through Christ Jesus.
There's this term fullness, especially in regard to
the corporate.
There's this term, the summing up, and there's
also the term glory.
This is also a term that shows God's
ultimate intention for all that he's doing in
these days, bringing many sons to glory, glorifying
these bringing all creation into glory.
And so we see that the fullness is
his measure and the summing up is his
process and the glory is his essence.
It's all a tremendous gathering by the finished
work of Christ.
When we talk about fullness, and we mentioned
the first night that Paul actually only uses
the term fullness in Ephesians and Colossians in
his most mature understanding of what God was
doing.
He sees that the end is fullness, that
the maturity is fullness.
And so he speaks of fullness.
Let's look at just a few scriptures there
in Ephesians where Paul mentions the matter of
fullness.
Not only does he mention it there at
the end of chapter one, where he says
in verse 23, the church, which is his
body, the fullness of him who fills all
in all the church is the fullness of
him who fills the church.
And then in chapter three, verse 19, and
to know the love of Christ, which surpasses
knowledge that you may be filled up to
all the fullness of God.
He's talking to the church gathered as they
comprehend the dimensions of Christ.
And then we notice fullness again in chapter
four, verse 13, until we all attain to
the unity of the faith and of the
knowledge of the son of God, to a
mature man, to the measure of the stature,
which belongs to the fullness of Christ.
The church grows up into the head and
grows up into the fullness of Christ, the
full stature of Christ, the full character of
Christ.
This is what Paul sees is the end
of things.
We might notice in passing in chapter four,
verse 10, that Paul also shows us the
resource for this fullness.
When he says he meaning Christ who descended
is himself also he who ascended far above
all the heavens so that he might fill
all things Christ in heaven.
The anointed one at the right hand of
the father has this infinite capacity to fill.
He loves to fill.
He expresses love by filling.
And so he's Paul says that he sat
up in heaven, that he might fill all
things.
And then he immediately says, give you some
examples, the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the
pastors and teachers, they were filled by Christ.
And they bring fullness to the church.
Every time there's somebody who's been filled by
Christ and expresses that fullness of Christ, other
people are filled.
And so there's a sense of the church
coming into fullness.
So the term fullness does have to do
with the maturity of Christ, this fullness of
the stature of Christ, this is a goal.
But as I said, the first night, right
from the very start, the church expresses fullness.
Think of the church after Pentecost.
We all remember Acts 242.
I don't think you need to turn there.
It says that the new disciples, the 3000
who'd all been baptized and the 120 who'd
been participating in Pentecost, they all gathered together.
They gathered together.
They continued steadfastly to gather together.
Nobody had to tell him you have to
go to Sunday because it didn't have Sunday.
They had Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday,
Sunday.
They continued steadfastly in the apostles teaching and
in fellowship, breaking bread and prayers.
Nobody said, no, I don't want to go.
Why?
Because it was at your house and they
gathered in their homes and they gathered out
on Solomon's porch.
They gathered and they gathered and they gathered
wherever they gathered.
Oh, there was such a sense of fullness.
It was a very young church.
So what does fullness mean in terms of
the young church?
You know, we as assemblies, wherever you go
to church, if we're lighter, if we're rightly
aligned under our Lord and enjoying his living
presence, there's a fullness there.
That's really wonderful.
I give you an example.
I think that there are in the early
days in the book of Acts, there were
four components, the fullness that you could see
even in the young church.
The first was they were full of gratitude.
They were taking their food together with joy
and singleness of heart and people were being
saved just by seeing, wow, how thankful they
are.
Paul mentions a number of times in his
exhortations, give thanks to God.
When we give thanks to God, it gives
glory to God.
There's a fullness.
There's people, when people's hearts are full of
gratitude, there's a fullness in the church.
When the church really worships with real thanksgiving,
not that kind of hum drum, let's sing
songs about thanksgiving and pretend we're thankful, though
I can't think of a reason why.
But that sense that I've newly been saved
and my whole life is brand new.
You know, some of you know, some of
you don't.
I traveled to Russia, at least for the
last several years, and I go out there
where people are hearing the gospel for the
first time and they have a new vocabulary.
They're so excited about it.
Words like faith, truth, love.
They almost sound Brazilian.
We have a brother Lucio here.
I don't know where he is tonight.
But brother Lucio, you know, he's from Brazil
and he speaks occasionally back home in Flushing
where I fellowship.
And he loves to stretch out words.
He says, God so loved the world.
I think loved is about four seconds because
it's like, you know, he just loves this
word.
He just lays on this word.
The Russian just lay on this word.
I've got forgive.
That's old to you and I have faith,
hope, love.
They were full of gratitude.
I do believe I can almost sense when
there's a fresh working of God in any
assembly because there's a lot of thanksgiving, just
a lot of thankfulness.
Of course, there's more than that.
How can the church be the fullness of
Christ?
I mean, doesn't Christ have everything already?
He doesn't have to ask the church for
a Toyota.
He has a Honda already where everybody's in
one accord.
Forget it.
Okay.
But listen, isn't the Lord already full?
How can we be the fullness of the
Lord?
Here's how we today, not even counting the
fact when we're there at the end of
the summing of all things with the spirit
saying, calm, but even today, how can we
be fullness?
Here we go.
Here's first gratitude.
Second of all, just being servants of the
Lord Jesus, being his messenger, going out, telling
the gospel, being the one who brings love
and compassion and mercy, or those who are
just servants of his.
Oh, that brings fullness.
There's nothing more wonderful than a master who's
got servants running around, running around, doing whatever
he wants.
And of course, it goes deeper than that.
What is it that really makes it fullness?
That first love, that love.
Thirdly, that love that knows no price knows
no cost.
Like the love a person has before they
get married.
What can I do for you, honey?
Can I get you something?
Can you, you know, can you, you know,
and then you get married, you come to
the cafeteria, the husband goes on one end,
the wife goes to the other.
No, no.
I see a lot of love even here
at the cafeteria.
Honey, can I get you something?
All this kind of stuff.
But you know what?
It's, it's a glory to Christ and how
the father loves it.
When his children just have first love, whatever
you want, how can we fulfill your desire?
Isn't that a great question?
How can I fulfill your heart today, Lord
Jesus?
There there's, there's just fullness in that love
fullness in that kind of earnest serving and,
and there's fullness in gratitude.
And of course, the fourth thing, which is
kind of like the kick, the kickback, even
in the early church, what was the church
full of?
The presence of Christ.
People came into the church.
They just said, wow, what's going on here?
Some people were afraid to join themselves with
the brethren.
There was such a presence of Christ there.
It was all by grace, but it's so
wonderful when that's when you see this kind
of fullness there.
So, so Paul uses this word fullness in
Ephesians and Colossians and we find it nowhere
else.
Oh, except where gospel of John, full of
grace and truth.
And of his fullness, we have all received
John chapter one, verse 16, grace upon grace.
You see, John was written years after Paul
and John, which I think is to my
mind, one of the most Gentile gospels.
It's just so gentle.
It's universal.
You know what I mean?
It's for anybody.
They love that gospel anywhere.
It's just so Gentile.
But anyway, John is trying to recover.
John is trying to bring back the very
things our brother.
Stephen has been sharing in these days.
John was faced at the end of his
life with a church that was losing the
fullness and the reality, and they were going
back to the things on the outside.
And so John presented a gospel that said,
look at the things as signs and look
through those things to the I am, because
that's your fullness.
John was trying to draw them back.
And so it was John who brings us
again years later to this matter of fullness,
full and obvious fullness.
We have all received and grace upon grace.
Now our brother shared a wonderful section in
his message this morning on the grace of
God.
It is wonderful.
It is undeserved.
It is freely given.
Paul says it's lavished upon us.
And certainly in those early days, grace is
just initiated sovereignly by God.
He pours it out on us even unexpectedly.
We talked about this mega gathering from 1970
to even to this day.
Let me just ask you, somebody said they'd
like to know how many of you have
been gathered in since 1970.
You've come to the Lord since 1970.
Well, now there we are.
You're part of that gathering process.
You've been gathered in by his grace.
Praise God.
And by his grace, you've been blessed by
his grace.
You're enjoying his life.
50 million people this year gathered into grace,
gathered into the grace room for the big
buffet in that grace room.
There's a wonderful buffet.
There's forgiveness.
There's love.
There's peace with God.
If you have needs, you can pray and
they'll be answered.
You know what it's like in that grace
room.
Paul mentions in Romans, chapter five, this a
little passage that caught my heart years ago,
and I just love it for its simplicity.
In Romans, chapter five, it begins, therefore, having
been justified by faith, we have peace with
God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom
also we have obtained our introduction by faith
into this grace in which we stand.
And we exalt in the hope of the
glory of God.
And not only this, we also exalt in
tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance and
perseverance, proven character and proven character hope.
And hope does not disappoint because the love
of God has been poured out within our
hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given
to us.
Now, you notice right there, it says in
verse two, we, by faith, have been brought
in through the door of faith into this
grace in which we now stand.
We stand in the grace of God.
I'm going to call that the grace room.
All of these provisions freely given to us
in Christ, even, and this is so important
for many of the Russians, just a reason
to live.
As well as love and forgiveness and hope
and deliverance and healing, it's all there in
the grace room, all absolutely free.
The provisions of the Holy Spirit, all absolutely
free.
It's just a gift.
It's a gift.
Go to the buffet.
Go ahead.
What do you want?
But of course, you know, the Lord wants
to bring us from grace to glory.
We can stand in that grace room.
And sometimes I think some Christians have stood
in that buffet an awfully long time, but
God has utter confidence in his ability to
get us to glory because he's got his
trump card just waiting for you unexpectedly.
There you and I are in the grace
room.
I think I need a little forgiveness today.
I'm standing around in the grace room.
I think I need a little love.
A couple of saints come over and give
me a hug, hug, hug.
Oh, this is the grace room is so
wonderful.
But then one day I look through the
window of hope and I see the glory
room.
Now I'm not there yet, but you see,
I'm standing in the grace room, but I
also rejoice in the glory of God.
I look through the window by the word
of God.
It's revealed to me the glory.
And there's something about the glory room.
It's no longer buffet.
It's a things of custom made, you know,
it isn't the buffet.
Now you've seen through the window, the chef
and the new and deeper hunger starts to
rise in your heart.
You know, I go probably about once a
year, I go up to Toronto.
Now, one thing they do in Toronto, that's
hard to find a match is take you
to the best places to eat food.
And I asked my host one time, how
come you always seem to know where the
best restaurant is for the best food?
Now, of course, you know, I'm some kind
of food critic.
What do I know?
I eat anything, but anyway, I said, how
do you always know where to bet?
Because he takes us different places, different years.
You know what he told me?
It's always Chinese food, by the way.
He says, I follow the chef.
Now he's learned a couple of the great
chefs there in Toronto.
And they have great Chinese chefs in Toronto.
And these guys get more money by the
next restaurant.
They go to the next restaurant.
He just follows the chef.
Oh, it's so wonderful to be in the
grace room with my 50 million brothers and
sisters enjoying all these things for free.
But boy, when I, when you look through
the window into the glory room, and of
course, it's Christ that you see has just
something, a hunger comes inside you.
This is God's absolute confidence that you and
I will be captured if we see Jesus
revealed.
And it's almost like the song takes on
a second verse, you know, the, the salvation
song, turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full
in his wonderful face and the things of
earth will grow strangely dim.
It's almost like there's a second verse and
even the things of grace seems strangely dim
in the light of his glory and grace.
We love the grace of God.
It's always free and ready for us, but
we've seen the glory room.
Have you been gathered to the glory room?
Have you looked through that window and seen
this Christ?
I wasn't saved until I was 20.
So I got started late for 10 years.
I was so happy serving in the church,
which we called the hospital for sinners, not
the hotel for saints.
I heard that from some guy and I
liked the motto.
So I'd always say, well, that church is
just a hospital for sinners, not a hotel
for saints.
And we'd preach the gospel and try to
gather people in, you know, to the church,
broken people, needy people.
This is a hospital for sinners.
I was happy for 10 years in the
church as a hospital for sinners until one
day I saw the most beautiful Christ I'd
ever seen.
And it was a corporate Christ, the church.
I didn't know that church was Christ.
I thought it was a hospital for sinners.
I thought it was a gathering place.
I didn't know until I looked through that
window that day and saw the most beautiful
Christ I'd ever seen.
It wasn't, I saw his head and then
I saw this hospital body.
No, I saw Christ from head to foot.
Christ is the church.
I'd even heard that, but I had to
see it.
And when I saw it, I left the
hospital because I found home.
But that church is a glorious church without
spot and wrinkle.
You know, back in that hospital for sinners
thing, nobody has to really get serious about
sanctification.
Everybody can just have sloppy agape.
You didn't have to deal with the flesh.
You know, you just held down the flesh
you wanted to, and you use the flesh
you wanted to.
It's just a hospital for sinners.
There's no big standard.
You just have to be saved.
And the church I was in yet to
be saved and baptized.
That's it.
Now suddenly I see a church.
It's my home.
It's a glorious place without spot or wrinkle.
And I not only saw that that was
my home, but that's when I learned how
you get from the grace room to the
glory room through the hallway of tribulation.
And I have to tell you, I wouldn't
have received this message of the cross, which
by the way, this was back in those
days, as I was telling you the first
night I was listening to brother Steven.
He'd always talk about the cross, how you
find the cross in numbers or judges or
Samuel or Ruth.
I don't know.
I didn't know at that time.
Now I have a clue.
The cross.
I knew there was something, but listen, if
you just want to be a hospital for
sinners, just loosey goosey going nowhere, growing, dividing,
fighting, then be it.
But I'm betting you've already seen the glorious
church.
Now two things happen.
When you see the glorious Christ, you're caught.
You are caught.
Don't say, catch me, Lord.
You've been caught.
You're caught by glory.
And the Lord begins to take you on
a process to make you fit for the
glory room.
I mean, that's what it's all about.
It continues all by grace, by grace, you've
been saved and by grace, you continue on,
but it's grace in the hallway of tribulation.
Have you been gathered to the glorious Christ?
Have you seen Christ?
Not just the Christ, the man who died
on the cross.
If you've seen the Christ of glory, whether
you're at the beginning stage of your life,
like Paul on the road to Damascus, when
he saw the Christ of glory, it changed
his life and captured him.
Or whether you are a veteran Christian in
a place of devastation in the hallway of
tribulation, like the apostle John on the isle
of Patmos, but he saw the glorious Christ
and he was captured.
There is no way to go through the
hallway of tribulation except in capture.
Because the only way we go are able
to go through the hallway of tribulation is
through his resurrection life.
We cannot battle it by our own wits
or guts.
We're going through something that's over our heads,
but he's captured us and he leads us
on.
So notice that Paul can say, what a
veteran this guy is.
He says, we not only rejoice in the
hope of the glory of God, but there
in Romans five, he says, we also rejoice
in tribulations.
What a nutcase.
Now, wait a minute.
Paul's not saying he laughs when he has
tribulations, but he knows where tribulation ends.
And he mentions that there's a track there.
Tribulations lead to perseverance, then proven character, and
then hope, and then hope pours the love
of God into you by the Holy spirit.
So Paul has experienced this enough to where
he knows when he's going through the hallway
of tribulation, the compensations of the love of
Christ are great compensations indeed.
And plus the fact he's being fit for
glory as he's going through these various process.
Now I don't need to convince you, I
think of the work of the cross, you
know, heavenly arithmetic.
If Christ is going to be the sum,
something has to be subtracted.
If he is going to increase, someone's got
to decrease.
We know this arithmetic.
There's no way around it.
And if we want our lives to be
summed up and full of Christ, there is
a subtraction process.
He is the sum.
We are the remainder.
And he begins to work on us and
work on us and fit us for this
glory.
The grace is still there.
The grace from the grace room is still
there, but it's a deeper grace.
I like to call it, these are my
own phrases, because it's hard to explain the
grace.
Sometimes in the early days, there's that initiative
grace that comes from God as a surprise
to you, even uncalled for, perhaps it's just
given to you freely.
But when we're going on in maturity in
our lives, there's grace already there for us,
but we have to respond to it and
take it.
I was really helped one day when I
was reading Professor Lightfoot's explanation of second Timothy
chapter two.
And there it says, be strong in the
grace that is in Christ Jesus.
But Dr. Lightfoot explained that what it really
says there in the Greek, in the reflexive
tense is strengthen yourself in the grace that
is in Christ Jesus.
Now, do you see the distinction?
Strengthening yourself in the grace that is in
Christ Jesus implies two things.
One, that the grace is right there, but
you have to take it.
In the early days as a basket case
Christian, as somebody like you and I, who
were completely on Christian welfare, God had to
motivate you, do it for you, everything by
grace.
He had to start it and complete it.
Now you're in a place going through this
hallway of tribulation and there's all the grace
in the world we need there, but you've
got to take it.
Responsible grace is what I call it.
Why?
It's because you have to respond and then
he is able.
It's his grace that's the ability, but you
have to respond.
It's responsible grace.
That's all that means.
You still live by grace.
It's his supply.
It's his ability.
And there's two differences between that initiating grace
right at the beginning and this responsible grace
that's yours to take now.
First, you have to take it.
And secondly, you'll find that you're taking not
a thing, but a person, not peace, but
the peace of Christ.
Not a power, but Christ in his power.
And not healing, but Christ the healer.
There's a new level to the provision.
It's Christ himself.
Notice the way Paul puts his own testimony
in 1 Corinthians chapter 15.
As he's talking about the grace of God
in his life as an apostle, as an
unworthy apostle, in 1 Corinthians 15 verse 10,
he says, but by the grace of God,
I am what I am now, brothers and
sisters may it be.
We all come to this place.
And what is this place?
What is Paul saying?
I've stopped arguing that I'm not worthy.
It's a done deal.
I've stopped arguing with the Lord.
I'm disqualified or I can't do that.
Or I don't have that gift or this
is too much for me.
I just stopped.
Here's the deal.
By the grace of God, I am what
I am.
Even though I'm not worthy to be an
apostle, he said, Paul, you're an apostle.
Okay.
By the grace of God.
Now notice what he says.
His grace toward me did not prove vain,
but I labored even more than all of
them yet.
Not I, but the grace of God with
me.
And he makes grace almost a person.
Now I've worked harder as an apostle by
the grace of God, but you know what?
It isn't me who's working as an apostle.
It's the grace that's with me.
And who is that grace who's with him?
You see, he's discovered that Christ is his
apostle.
He's discovered that he apostles by the grace
and the life of Christ you see.
And that's why his ministry is so abundant.
How we need to learn this fact.
I would like to say, I thought Lance's
message last night was tremendous.
And all of those eight imperatives are something
we should write down back of our Bibles
and look at as we stand fast in
these last days.
But I sometimes think that perhaps the source
of the grace that enables us to stand
and be faithful in those imperatives is this.
Once having seen the glory of Christ to
respect glory, do you respect glory?
Do you value glory?
It's unnatural to us.
You know, naturally we value ephemeral things, things
that can be seen.
But we know, of course, that Paul says
he doesn't look at the things that are
temporal, which can be seen.
He looks at the unseen and eternal things.
And that's where he is betting.
That's where he's investing.
He values glory.
Do you value glory?
As I look at some of the saints
and some of the servants of God who
are faithful, I've noticed a few things.
One is this.
When you find the saint who really is
looking, has the hope of the coming of
the Lord Jesus, you see somebody who's in
the race because they value glory.
You get my point?
We all talk like we want Jesus to
come back.
But some people really have this hope that's
a motivator in their lives, and they're pressing
on because they know what's coming.
They value, they value glory.
Those who value glory seek the things that
are above where Christ is seated.
Do you?
Do you treasure the word of God?
Do you seek the things above or are
you just seeking more of the things on
this earth?
Valuing glory.
You know, the Lord has to help us
to come to this kind of valuation because
we are so earth bound and we go
through all kinds of hallways of tribulation, moments
of tribulation to come to the place where
we value glory.
Even after seeing the Christ of glory, the
Lord of glory, do you think it's possible
to have seen the Lord of glory, but
to be falling back away into the things
of this world again?
I suppose it's possible, but the Lord helps
us along the way.
Many tribulations in our life make us value
glory all the more.
I'll share some with you.
Certainly for me, I remember the devastation of
when my oldest son died in a car
crash.
You know, and when you raise your child
up and you're a Christian and you're trying
to do things right and then your son
dies, it's a devastation.
It's, you know, God, I did my part
of the deal.
Why didn't you do your part of the
deal?
But you know what?
That was one of the moments in my
life through the devastation, through the coming back
to square one, that I began to value
the things above.
One thing I knew, my son was saved
and I'm looking forward to seeing him.
And just that little bit of heavenly investment
lifted the weight of my earthly cares.
The Lord will teach us to value glory
because it's a very important key to having
absolute devotion to the Lord as our brother
Lance was exhorting us.
Do you value the glory of the Lord
Jesus?
Well, if we, I feel confident that I
am here tonight fellowshipping with people mostly who
have already been suckered in to the hallway
of tribulation, because you love the Lord.
Now, once you see the glory, you want
to seek for glory.
But the interesting thing about seeking for glory,
when you read in the Bible, it doesn't
work if you seek for your own glory.
So even Jesus, when he was, you know,
questioned by the leaders of the Jews, he
said, no, I don't seek my own glory.
If I did, I wouldn't be true, but
it's my father who glorifies me and I
try to glorify the father.
So seeking our own glory, I know we
have that song, you know, oh, that will
be glory for me.
Well, when we get to heaven and we're
with the Lord, it will be glory for
us.
But our focus isn't on our glory.
It's on his glory.
If you really see Christ in glory, you
want to glorify him.
Your life is about him.
And Paul even says in a few places
that I'm willing to suffer that you might
come to glory.
Isn't that wonderful?
Because when we see the Christ of glory
and when we've looked into that glory room,
there is a new motivation in our lives.
It's no longer just about ourselves anymore.
As long as we just stay like babes
in the grace room and taking this and
taking that, we're just selfish, selfish, selfish.
But once we look into glory, you might
be the most selfish person in the world,
but there's something more important than yourself worth
going after.
And so our life begins to change.
Well, now you and I have been in
this hallway of tribulation, I'm sure almost everybody
here.
So I just want to encourage you.
If you've entered the hallway, then I just
want to share with you four lessons that
we learn as we're being fit for glory.
Lesson number one, as soon as you set
your heart to go toward the glory, even
through tribulation, you don't choose tribulation.
You just start heading toward glory.
Tribulation takes care of itself.
As soon as you set your heart that
way, that's when you first come under the
earnest attack of the world, the flesh, and
the devil.
The whole spirit of this age is against
glory.
It hates God's glory, even more the glory
of Christ, even more the glory of the
church.
And when you set your heart in this
direction, the whole spirit of this age starts
working against your absolute devotion to Christ.
Now, here's the deal.
If you set your face for the Lord
and you just walk toward the Lord by
the spirit of God, taking his grace, the
world, the flesh, and the devil doesn't have
much influence on you.
But if you look back, I don't know
why we are Lot's wife, but we look
back.
I don't know why we do it.
And right behind us, there's the dogs.
I just picked out three spirits of this
age that are anti-Christ because they're anti
-glory, and they come all over you and
attack you.
If you turn back from looking toward Christ,
looking away unto Jesus, and running that way,
you turn back.
And here's the first thing, perhaps, it's Mammon's
temptations.
If I were, well, if I were a
nasty person, I could list people's names that
I've seen running after Jesus.
And then they turned back because Mammon said
to them, you can do both, gain the
world and gain the glory.
You're exceptional.
You can do both.
You can work on that job and make
that money and everything.
You can also serve God.
No, don't worry.
It's Mammon's game.
Just another year.
I know they want you to serve.
I know they want you to go somewhere
and speak.
I know they want you to get yourself
free.
But no, no, no, no, just another year.
It's all you need.
Just accumulate a little bit more.
It's all you need.
Oh, that Mammon's game begins to clutch over
people's lives and they lose the race.
The second spirit of this age, which our
brother mentioned, is the absolute obsession with psychology
and self-centeredness.
Self-centeredness, you know, a hundred years ago,
people weren't so self-centered because you had
to go to work.
You didn't have time to get a cold.
Now somebody thinks they're coming down with something.
They don't show up.
People are into themselves.
How am I feeling?
What is that for me?
Who's me, me, mine.
You know, Rick Warren wrote that book, the
huge book, the purpose-driven life.
And you know what?
It struck a chord within the church.
And do you know why?
I saw it firsthand.
One of my sons who's not pursuing the
Lord, saw the book, picked it up, read
the whole thing.
You know why?
How many of you know the opening sentence
in that book?
Here it is.
It's not about you.
It's about him.
And this whole self-centered culture of Christians
say, wow, what does that mean?
What does that mean for me?
And so they read it.
And so they are totally obsessed.
And dear brothers and sisters, there's so many
of us who are so into ourselves.
It's a trap.
And we can't think of anything without thinking
what it's going to do for us.
You know, it wasn't too long ago when
you just did something because it was the
right thing to do.
Sometimes you, even though your marriage wasn't going
so good, you just stayed together because that's
what you should do.
And I'm not such a person who believes
that's not such a bad idea.
We got all these people, but I'm not
happy.
I'm not happy.
I'm swimming in selfishness.
I'm still not happy.
How else can I fulfill myself?
It's a deep trap.
And for Christians, they're trapped.
They're trapped.
And the other thing about this generation, as
Jesus even called it, an unbelieving, perverse generation,
such unbelief.
You know how it is.
You work on your job, dear brother, sister,
and you just mention the Lord Jesus and
the ridicules liable to come your way.
I mean, it is such unbelief in this
world, but Christians are just absolutely.
And now Christians, of course, believe everything, right?
Most of you are Christians.
Do you believe everything?
Amen.
But unbelief for Christians is manifest by fear.
And Christians are so afraid that they can't
serve God.
They're afraid among everything else that they're afraid
of.
They're afraid.
Listen, they're afraid they're going to make a
mistake.
And that's their biggest mistake.
I don't know why we have such pride
that we just can't stand to think we
could make a mistake.
I thought the Lord was telling me to
go next door and talk to my neighbor,
but it must've been a colossal mistake.
And we're just bound up by fear.
It's a terrible thing.
And it's all because we've stopped looking at
the Lord and we turned around to see
what the world has to say.
Oh, the spirit of this age is not
worth listening to.
If you're going through the hallway of tribulation,
you stick in there with the Lord.
You put the blinders on and go.
Second thing I think we've all learned is
this.
In the hallway of tribulation, subtraction is gain,
right?
You only learn that in the hall.
Subtraction sounds like loss until you go through
tribulation.
Paul says, all those things that were gained
to me, I now consider loss.
What is gain?
What were those things that were gain?
Gain are those things which affirm your self
-life.
I am an important person.
And I'll tell you why, because I'm of
the tribe of Benjamin.
I was circumcised on the seventh day.
I'm a Hebrew of the Hebrews.
I'm a Pharisee.
I've got a lot of gain.
Those are the things that make me say,
I am good.
Me, me, me, me, me.
I am worth something.
Then Jesus said, I want you to go,
Paul.
I want you to preach to the Gentiles.
He says, no, no, God, they don't know
my credentials.
He goes out there to somewhere in the
Asia minor.
He says, hey, I'm of the tribe of
Benjamin.
They say, hey, I'm of the tribe of
Mesopotamia.
What's the tribe of Benjamin to a Gentile?
And all those things that were gained that
he could use for leverage to be a
somebody, they were nothing.
And in his loss of all things, he
gained Christ.
So now when he goes out to those
people in Asia minor, he takes Christ to
them.
Much more powerful ministry than ministering out of
my credentials.
It turns out, isn't it?
Subtraction is gain.
And in your life and ours.
So here's what happens.
Everybody has a certain level.
And so what happens with young people, I
see this all the time, is they get
fired up.
They're Christians.
They start to serve the Lord.
But very quickly, what happens?
They get maxed out.
They get maxed out by the American dream.
All their credit cards are maxed out.
All their time is maxed out.
They just have no more time.
Now, they used to go to Bible study
three nights a week.
No time now.
Because because now they're making good money.
So, of course, you know, they go to
the bowling club and then they got the
movie club and then they got the this
and that.
And then they got and then they have
to spend 26 hours a week on the
on the websites.
And they're maxed out.
Unfortunately, when you see a young person of
25 years old and they're already maxed out,
you realize something.
God's going to call them to do something
and they won't be able to do it
because they're maxed out.
The unfortunate thing about it is that's pretty
much the adult malaise today, isn't it?
And that's why the Lord comes along and
he says, it's time for a little subtraction.
I'm talking about a little simplicity here.
In order that you might have some time
to serve me.
So many Christians who say I'm going to
get around to it one day.
When we go through the hallway of tribulation
and he starts subtracting stuff from us, we
experience it every time he subtracts something from
us.
Our loss becomes gain because we gain Christ.
A third thing we find in the hallway
of tribulation is many people, not everybody, many
people go through a devastation.
A devastation that arithmetically takes them to zero.
A devastation that undoes them.
A devastation that takes them back to square
one.
And what we learn by devastation is there
is no devastation.
Even devastation is gained to us.
And why is that?
Because most of the time is when there's
been some devastation in our lives that we
remember and repent and return and come back
fresh.
Oh, I praise God.
I know there are brothers or sisters who
wander away for a while.
Then something terrible happens to them.
It doesn't have to be a tragedy.
It can be just a loss of their
job.
Everything goes wrong and all of their circumstances
go wrong.
They lose their house in the storm.
I don't know.
Just so many things that can happen.
And it brings them back to realize that
all they really needed was Christ anyway.
And of course, they end up with whatever
they need to get on with their lives.
The Lord knows what we need in order
to survive and overcome and live.
But isn't it refreshing sometimes, even after a
devastation, to realize that what you really need
is the Lord anyway.
And we all say that.
But sometimes it takes a zeroing out of
our balance to get us to really appreciate
Christ is our life.
We're so dependent on our self-life.
And before the devastation, we thought just that
kind of outward maintaining of things would be
enough.
But when the devastation comes, we realize how
devoid we were of Christ.
We return.
We repent.
We find his grace again.
Even devastation can be gained.
Well, the last thing I want to say
tonight is the fourth lesson we learn in
the hallway of tribulation.
There's others, but you know, this is good
enough.
And the lesson is this.
It's when you're going through the tribulation, and
when you have made the mistake, and when
you have taken a detour, and when you
have caused devastation, and when you have hurt
others, and when you have lost your way,
that's when he comes to you again.
There's such mercy in our Lord.
This spring, I was doing Genesis Bible study
with the young people in New York, and
I was looking at the stories, and I
was looking at Joseph.
And of course, that's such a wonderful story,
but I'd never really quite seen Christ and
Joseph in this particular way.
Joseph came to glory at 30 years old
through the way of the cross, through the
way of betrayal by his brothers, through the
way of the prison, through the way of
betrayal, and through this whole life that he
lived just trusting in God.
He was raised to the place of prominence
at 30 years of age to be the
right-hand man before Pharaoh.
He'd come to glory, but still that wasn't
his purpose for him to come to glory.
It was about his family coming to glory.
And although Joseph realized this now that he
was at that place of glory, what could
he do but just serve Pharaoh?
And so there he was serving when God
made that wonderful arrangement and sent his brothers
along to get grain during the famine in
Egypt.
And when Joseph saw his brothers, he's just
like Jesus when he sees us in the
hallway of tribulation on the wrong track, all
out of sorts, carnal and out of the
spirit.
He longed to hug his brothers, to reveal
himself to his brothers, but he couldn't.
Not because he wasn't ready, but because they
weren't ready.
And so they went through these ordeals, and
as Joseph put them wisely through these God
-led ordeals there in the prison themselves, as
they sat there three days, they began to
say to themselves, perhaps this harsh treatment, this...
At first the brothers were completely offended by
the treatment.
How could we be treated like this?
We're honest men.
We've never done anything wrong.
We just came to get grain.
Why is this man saying we're a spy?
Oh, this is so unfair.
It's so unfair.
Three days later, they're saying, do you think
this has a connection with what we did
to Joseph?
It took that pressure for their conscience to
be awakened.
And they said that, I think this is
because of something we've done to our brother.
On the way back home, as they opened
the sack and they saw that their money
was in the sack, they said a further
thing.
What is this that God has done?
Now they knew they were going through the
hallway of tribulation and God was leading the
path, but they were trying to figure out
what on earth is God doing to us?
Why is he messing with us?
We're just Jacob's kids.
Innocent kids.
Of course, they eventually had to go back.
They had to bring Benjamin with them.
You know the story.
The last beloved of the grieving Jacob, and
they bring Benjamin back and they have a
wonderful feast together with Joseph.
And it seems like the whole tribulations off.
But as they start heading back, the servant
of Joseph goes and finds the, the, the
goblet in Benjamin's sack, which means Benjamin will
be, go back, go back and be the
slave of that master for the rest of
his life.
And the brothers would have to go home
without the only one who kept Jacob alive.
And it was at that point that Judah
did a noble thing.
He took responsibility.
He personally repented.
He openly said that God has done this
to us because of what we had done
to our brother.
He pleaded with Joseph, not knowing who he
was.
Please keep me and send Benjamin back.
Judah repented.
He had the guts, the grace.
He saw the reality and he repented.
And when he repented, Joseph couldn't restrain himself.
Another moment, he began to sob and cry
and he revealed himself to his brother says,
I'm Joseph.
And Judah's whole life flashed in front of
them.
The one we threw in the ditch, the
one we were thinking of killing, the one
we betrayed here, he is standing here, but
they saw the glorified Joseph.
They can hardly take it in, but all
Joseph could do is just show them love.
He showed them a sobbing heart.
He said, Oh, listen, brothers, listen, brothers, you
thought all this evil you was doing was
evil.
God was using it to bring the whole
family to glory.
So now go back and tell dad that
I'm alive here.
Take these gifts and show them.
And of course, his brothers went back.
He brought his brothers to glory.
He brought them to Goshen.
He brought them to the land.
He brought them to a place where God
could cover them and bless them and enable
them through a famine time.
And you know, I really think Jesus is
like that.
I know sometime I've gotten stuck because the
hallway tribulation goes like this and you get
stuck in a corner sometime and you quit
or you lie down or you squabble or
you get mad or you get frustrated or
you take a detour or whatever you do.
And right there next to you in disguise
is Jesus, the glorious Jesus.
But he can't show himself to you yet.
Until I repent and I say, I'm sorry,
Lord.
And then.
Surprised to find.
The Lord crying for me.
What a humbling thing.
Just when you think you're completely unworthy and
should be disqualified and there's no way you
can go on and your sins are unforgivable
and your detour is irreconcilable.
And that's when he says, go feed my
sheep.
And he comes and reveals himself to us
right there in the hallway of tribulation.
When we're going through the difficult times, you
know, something he knows you're going to fail
and you're going to detour and you're going
to quit and you're going to get mad
and you're going to take offense.
He knows all of that thing.
And he's just waiting for you, knowing that
you've done that, knowing that you're human, just
waiting for you to repent and return.
And he's right there.
You'd have to climb back up to the
grace hall.
He's right there.
And when you see him again, you start
running with Jesus again.
He gets out in front of you and
you start going.
Sometimes it's as if nothing ever happened, but
a lot has happened.
And he's brought you closer to himself.
Isn't it amazing the mercy of Jesus?
That he would meet us down there in
that, as I call it, the bowels of
the tribulation.
We're in the intestines down there.
And give you the privilege of following him
along until once again, he gets out of
sight because you've slowed down or get off
on the detour.
How many times do you need to repent?
How many times do you need to recall?
How many times do you need to return?
Is it once, twice, three times a year?
How often is it?
It depends what you're going through.
But what eventually happens is you learn in
the hallway of tribulation.
If there's something that's not right, it's probably
your problem.
And you just come before the Lord broken.
Lord, I don't know what to do.
I tried to do my best and everything
went wrong.
So I'm obviously doing something wrong rather than
saying it's somebody else.
In that hallway, we start to own up.
Oh, what a glory.
And through all that process, what he does
is he pours out some more love, gives
us some more grace.
We lay hold of him as our life
in another way and we run on.
Dear brothers and sisters, how many more conferences
will we have anyway?
Not just Richmond.
How much longer before the Lord comes back?
How quickly he's gathering the people in from
the world.
How wonderful to see that.
And isn't it that he wants to gather
a group of people together in such a
way that they can stand with the Holy
Spirit and say, come as anybody thirsty, let
him come.
Oh, that the church could have that kind
of fullness and beauty that you could see
the beauty of the Lord.
Because this is a bride who's been made
ready and the bride is saying come and
you can see and hear the words of
the Lord gathering people to himself.
There's a great gathering going on.
Millions will be gathered in this year.
Are you part of the gathering process?
Not only does he gather us to himself,
but he gathers us from the grace room
into the glory room.
We find ourselves down here somewhere together.
That's why we can understand each other, right?
We're all down here in the hallway somewhere.
Have you seen the glory?
If you've seen the glory, well, you could
be just as selfish as I am, but
something's going to press you forward anyway.
Have you seen the glory?
Then the work that he's begun in you,
he's going to complete.
Have you seen the glory?
Then you've got to learn to work out
your own salvation with fear and trembling.
For it's a God who's at work in
you, both to will and to do of
his good pleasure.
Oh, there's only one way forward.
It's to look at the glorious Lord and
to value glory, value glory.
Don't throw that glory away.
Even the rewards our brother talked about.
You know, we talk about rewards so seldom,
but all I know is those who lose
reward because they haven't grabbed that responsible grace
are going to regret it beyond imagining in
that day.
To value glory, the things that he promises
to us who will be faithful.
These are the things that will keep us
and help us and give us grace in
these days.
And in the end, the Lord is so
gracious, so merciful.
And in the end, when the top stones
laid in, what are we all going to
say?
It's grace, grace that God is here after
all.
Let's pray.
So you have us on the journey from
grace to glory.
We have seen our Lord Jesus.
He has the glory of the only begotten
of the father.
He is the glorious son.
And yet we see and find him full
of grace and truth.
Oh, Lord, when we see our Lord, whether
through the word, through some revelation, through some
message given, our hearts reach out and we
want to follow after him.
And yet we know as we're going toward
glory, we'll go through much tribulation.
Oh, help us not to look at the
tribulation, but to keep our eyes on Jesus.
Help us to realize that our loss is
our gain.
Our gain is our loss.
Help us learn these lessons, Lord, as we're
going through in this narrow way, as you're
funneling us up and summing us up in
Christ, as you're taking the various disparate aspects
of our lives and bringing them into an
integer.
Oh, Lord, make us one in Christ.
We pray for the assemblies that are represented
here.
Precious brothers and sisters meeting together, just trying
to maintain the outward.
Oh, forgive us, Lord.
How you brought us into all kinds of
tribulation.
Just so that we can learn that sometimes
our losses are gain.
And just to teach us how to have
absolute devotion to you.
No matter what.
Oh, Lord, all of us probably has faced
great disappointments, some devastation, some things in our
lives.
Oh, Lord, I pray.
Lord, don't allow our dear brothers and sisters
to become hardened and bitter and angry and
take offense, but rather break us, Lord.
And then hug us with weeping as you
restore us to yourself.
Lord, we know there's many wounded sheep.
For various mysterious reasons and some not so
mysterious.
Oh, gather your sheep together, Lord.
How can sheep have pride when we wander
so easily?
But you're the glorious Lord.
And that's the thing that holds us together
anyway.
It isn't that there's great brothers and sisters
here.
It's that we see a glorious Lord and
we see him in the church.
Lord, and for all of us as we
live out our assembly life.
Oh, that we might experience the fullness of
Christ with his presence, with service and gratitude
and love.
The fullness of Christ's life in our assembly
and in our ministry and in our fellowship
together.
Lord, we know these are wonderful goals, but
they can only be attained to as we
follow them.
Oh, help us, Lord, to love the Christ
of glory and lay hold of that grace
that's provided for us.
Forgive us for all the times we say,
give us grace to do something when the
grace is already there.
And give us the faith to say, I
take the grace to be faithful to you.
Oh, help us, Lord, in these last days.
You want a testimony on this earth of
those who say, I love the Christ of
glory.
I've seen, I've tasted, and I want more.
We want to run along with the apostle
Paul toward that upward call in Christ Jesus.
Oh, help us, Lord, in Jesus name.