He Gave, Eph, 4:11-13
Ephesians 4:11-13 · Vern Peterman · Mar 13, 2005
Ephesians & Colossians, No. 59
Holly Hills Bible Church
https://hollyhillsbiblechurch.org/teaching/messages/48262322305591

Transcribed from the recording by SermonAudio, so expect the occasional misheard word.

Here we are in Ephesians 4, 11 through 13. To get some perspective, beginning in chapter 4, we saw the first six verses were an appeal in the condition of the believer based on the singular position that every believer has in the Lord. Then in the next verses, we looked at last week Christ's actions resulting in spiritual captives and gifts to the church. And then finally, as we look at This week's passage will be looking at the first half of this kind of block of thought, if you will, specific gifts given in God's intended condition in the church.

What does that look like is the question that Paul's going to be answering. And so we'll be looking this morning at the first half of 11 through 16. As we look at this passage here, one of the things we note is it's a. I got three verses in it. So one of the things we'll do is to split it up one verse at a time and look at it that way. And so as you'll see it on your handout from here on out, we'll have one verse at a time. So take a look at that. Beginning of verse 11. Can you imagine that? We'll start with the first one. All right. One of the things that comes up just scattered throughout that verse is this sum as and you'll have something similar communicated in other translations.

But one of the things that before he said, there's one faith, there's one baptism, there's one Lord, there's one Spirit. He's pointed to singularity, hasn't he? Up till now, he's pointed out that Christ is the single giver of these gifts. Now, for the first time, he's turning a corner, and he's laying out, here is diversity.

Here is difference from one believer to another. It's not in disregard for the things that believers are united by. As a matter of fact, the end result that God intends is unity. But this is something that's different for different believers, so he spells it out as the English comes across in this translation, some as, some as this, some as that. In 1 Corinthians chapter 12, Paul conveyed the same message to the church at Corinth in a slightly different way.

And he did it by asking questions, and there is the ability in the Greek to ask a question with the implied answer, and that's what he does here. Are all apostles? Implied answer, no. Are all prophets? Implied answer, no. So there are some who have this gift, and some who have this other gift, and he begins laying out the diversity within the body of Christ. Now let's look at this apostles and prophets, what he starts laying out here.

And one of the things that comes out is we've seen this reference to apostles and prophets as a pair since we went through Ephesians 2.20 and then 3.5.

It seems like for chapter after chapter he lays that word pair out and then finally this passage here, Ephesians 4.11 that we're looking at this morning. So this is the third and final time that he has used the pair apostles and prophets together. Now we're going to do a little bit of a look at that.

To start off with, we're going to say that these apostles are special messengers. They had a particular position, and notice as you go through scripture that apostles had specific qualifications and requirements and assignments. They were indeed foundational, which is why we show a foundation stone there. The prophets likewise are foundational.

They had an interim role in the early church before they had the entire New Testament to be able to give direction and revelation into each local church before the New Testament was fully revealed. Between these two gifts, they served as foundational gifts for the church. Now, these are gifted people given as gifts to the church. That's different from what we see in the other passages that talk about spiritual gifts. The first one we saw is that the apostles and prophets were a foundation. They were foundational gifts. Christ was the cornerstone. Next chapter, 3-5, they are given for revelation, and finally here in 4-11, they are given for edification, that is, for building up. So we see that they're serving as a foundation, and they reveal why? To build up. To edify the body of Christ. Now we want to look at the gifts that were given for the time beyond the apostolic era, that is, that remain into the rest of the Church Age and have direct and specific application in this body.

The first one that Paul mentioned is evangelists. Now in scripture, it's interesting, there's only a couple of mention of evangelists by name. The first one is Philip, who is initially recognized as a deacon, Acts chapter 6. And then chapter 8 describes a couple of different evangelistic efforts that Philip is involved in. The other instance that we run into is where Timothy is told by Paul, and this is, if you want to make note of it, 2 Timothy 4 or 5. Timothy is told by Paul, Timothy, do the work of an evangelist. And by the way, this is 2 Timothy, which means it's Paul's last letter. This is where Paul is also writing, I'm about done here, guys.

I'm about ready to be poured out. And so you always communicate that things are important at those moments, right? You don't say, hey, the weather's kind of snowy today, right? You talk about what counts. And so one of the things he tells Timothy, do the work of an evangelist. Now those are the only two personal mentions we have of it. Now think about it, because in our era, we kind of tend to think of evangelists a little bit differently than they did in the earlier era. So it's worth our putting a moment or two to think about that. I'll just tell you a little personal story.

My grandpa was born and raised for the first couple of decades of his life in Great Bend, Kansas. There's a few people in his church body, as I've talked with people, who even lived there themselves, so it does still exist, I understand. Anyway, my grandpa spent the first couple of decades of his life there, and sweeping through the area of Great Bend, Kansas, he came across a tent meeting, and went to the tent meeting, and became a believer at the tent meeting, and then turned around and traveled with the tent meeting.

And he'd go into the towns and he had this little fold-up organ and he'd take it out on the street corner and he'd start playing the organ and people would gather around because they didn't have TVs to watch in those days. And so he'd tell them, okay I need to tell you about this tent meeting that we're having. So he'd walk around town with this organ playing telling people about the tent meeting that's coming up. That was his experience.

What we've seen in more recent years have been even larger scale. Stadium evangelism is something that's come in roughly the last half century and so large groups and crowds and we typically get high profile names that are associated with the stadium evangelism. Now some, well I have to say unfortunately, we've also gotten some other ideas here.

Televangelists. And it's interesting, people who have no idea what the gospel is will tell you that they know what a televangelist is. They'll recognize that. Even if they don't know the gospel, they'll know about these folks. And it's an unfortunate thing that that word evangelism has even gotten associated with it because it is good news. And unfortunately, a lot of these people aren't. You know what I mean. Nameless but effective evangelists are described here in the book of Acts. Here's 11, 19 through 22. Look at what happens and notice no names.

So then those who were scattered because of the persecution that occurred in connection with Stephen made their way to Phoenicia and Cyprus and Antioch, speaking the word to no one except to Jews alone. Verse 20, but There were some of the men of Cyprus and Cyrene who came to Antioch and began speaking to the Greeks also, preaching the Lord Jesus. And the hand of the Lord was with them, and a large number who believed turned to the Lord.

Do we know those people's names? Nah. Did they have great big stadium meetings? Nah. But they told people, and a large number of people were impacted. And I think ultimately our modern conceptions have really gotten things distorted. Because ultimately this is more of a person-to-person thing than a media thing. It is more of a personal testimony than a big program.

And what's interesting, some years ago there was a book written, it's not a big one, it's called The Gospel Blimp. You may have heard of it. These people, these Christians decide we're going to go and get a blimp going and we'll have big streamers behind the blimp and we'll drop leaflets from the blimp and we'll blare out the good news from this blimp. And so they have this big program to get these blimps, this blimp aloft. And finally, the guy who's starting this thing, his neighbor becomes a believer. And he says, ah, which broadcast was it? Which leaflet was it? It wasn't any of those. Those irritated me to no end. Then how did you become a believer?

Oh, your next door neighbor told me. Instead of the big programs that are put out there, instead of what's high profile and what gets blasted into our living rooms, the intent that the Lord put in place there is, people telling other people the good news. It's that simple, folks. And that's the giftedness that he's talking about here. Not a giftedness in some program, not a giftedness in some great big high-profile fiasco, but one believer gifted to tell another person about the Lord Jesus Christ.

Then he says, pastors and teachers, okay? These last words, I have to tell you, have been the source of immense debate, not just for a few years, not even a few decades. For centuries, people have argued over what this means. Is it pastors and then there's teachers? Or is it pastors who can teach? And they just go around in circles over this thing. This becomes an area of discussion because of this.

The Greek, there is a definite article before these words. That's like our English, the, right? So it's kind of the pastors and teachers in the Greek. It's not brought across that well in English, but that's the way it's written. And interestingly, too, this word for pastors is poimen. It's the only place in the entire New Testament where pastors are called by this word that we translate as pastors. Isn't that interesting? Elsewhere, we typically see them as elders, overseers, things of that sort. The related verb to shepherd is used by both Peter and Paul.

So it tells me the Lord's far more interested in action than he is in titles. Now, here's the way the argument goes. There's this guy named Granville Sharpe. He wrote a couple centuries back about this little rule. If you have this definite article and a couple of nouns connected by the Greek chi and, that's called the Granville Sharpe rule, named after the fellow. Now, it has to be singular. And what's wrong with applying it in this passage? It's plurals. So that's the problem. So people have wrongly tried to make conclusions based on applying the Granville Sharpe rule. Now, here's an example of where it does fit, and it's wonderful when it does.

2 Peter 1.1, By the righteousness of our God and Savior, Jesus Christ. In the Greek, there's a definite article. The God and Savior of us. And what that means is Savior, Jesus Christ, and God are the same. identical.

You also find that in Titus 2.13. So there is valid application of that rule. It just doesn't fit here because these are plurals. That's an exception that Granville Sharp wrote when he first wrote this a little over two centuries ago. Now, since this is plural, we can't just make an automatic connection that pastors and teachers are intended to be the same gift. But there does seem to be a connection between them.

Interestingly, Ephesians 2.20, remember we pointed that out, Apostles and Prophets, that first instance has a definite article there and is similar to this construction. It seems to make a relationship between the two, but not necessarily that they're identical. So this much, however, is clear. And in truth, we can establish this well and clearly and easily from other scriptures.

Pastors and literally shepherds in that era If you said the word that Paul wrote, poyman, they wouldn't think of some guy with some clerical collar that got up in front and spoke through a microphone. Believe me, they wouldn't. But what they would think of was a shepherd, because that's the word that would pop up in their minds. Shepherds and teachers.

Shepherds are also called elders and overseers, and they are, by requirement, to be able to teach. So we know that that's the case. The pastors that are given as gifts to the church are to be able to teach, required. In addition to that, there is distinctly and separately a gift of teaching. There is a relationship between the pastors and the teachers then, but not necessarily making them identical.

All right, so why do we have church? What's the purpose? So we have this, here's the gifts to the church, but why do we have the church? Now, here at Holly Hills, I've been here three and a half years now, and I can tell you, there's not a bad egg in the bunch. But we still have to ask the question, why do we have the church? Why do we have the church?

Verse 12 is about to tell us the purpose of the church. See that? The purpose of the church. Why are we meeting here? Why did He give these gifted people as gifts to the church. He's going to give us the purpose here. This is important for us to know. Why?

Because we're meeting here this morning. It should be good to know why we're meeting, right? Is there a biblical basis or is this just sort of, hey, we always do this. Even if it's snowing, we do this. OK. Why do we maintain relationships with each other? Go through the work that Norm and Eleanor did to put the directory together. After all, if you think about it, We're a rather varied group, aren't we?

Oh boy. Okay. Now, the other thing to let you know is you have on page six of your handout just a kind of summary of what's the purpose of the local church. And you can take a look at that on your own time and at your leisure. Now, what we're going to do here this morning, however, is take a look at verse 12 because that answers the question.

Here is why these people were gifted to the church. both the apostles and prophets who are foundational and the evangelists and pastors and teachers who continue on. They existed then, but they continue on into the rest of the church era up until the time of the rapture. The giftedness of these people who are given to the church are intended to equip the people in the church, preparing the church, getting us ready for the work of serving. That's why they were given, to what end? That's the key thing here. To what purpose?

To the building up of the body of Christ. That's the key. The building up of the body of Christ. Now notice something here. They're given to equip the saints for the building up the body of Christ. The work of service of building up the body of Christ you're involved in. There's sort of a cultural thing, oh that's the pastor's job, right? No. Pastors and teachers are gifted to the church to equip the church for the work of service to the building up of the body of Christ.

Every single one of us is important to this. Every single one. It doesn't make an exclusive group It doesn't make for just a clerical group and laymen. Oh boy. You don't have that. Instead what you see is an equipping process. An equipping process so that the people in the church, all of them, are ready, equipped, prepared for the work of service. Now, he's going to spell out in verse 13 what exactly that means. What does that say? Let's look at it. Here's what it means to build up the body of Christ.

Now, what we're going to do, with every contribution to Holyhills Bible Church, you will receive an annual membership at the gym of your choice. I haven't told the deacons about this, but they'll catch up to it. So you're aware of that? You're ready for it. We want every one of you to just be muscle-bound like crazy. We've got a governor here that's a good example.

Not! It's not what we're going to do. Alright, here's how Paul spells it out. Contra-onald. Until we attain. Now notice there's an implication here. Until. This is a process involving time, isn't it? God doesn't just say, abracadabra, boom, there is the church, you're instantly mature, congratulations. No, until. There is a process involving time. And that one word, until, warns us of that, doesn't it? There is a growth process that will take place. We do not become instantly mature. There is no, I get some special second blessing or third or something of that sort. There is no abracadabra. No, there is a time element to this process of growing.

There's also another factor that pops up in the one word, all. It's universal. It's not like, okay, we've got this little growth group over here, and the rest of the people are just treading water. Every believer is to be involved. That's God's intent. If you're a believer, you're part of the church, you're a part of the body of Christ, this includes you. There's nobody that's on the outs. There's nobody that's not part of the core group. There isn't some hierarchy. to climb. There isn't some door to pass through once you've become a believer. If you're a believer, you're involved, you're included.

Now, as we go beyond that, you see the next phrase pop up there, to the unity of the faith. Ah, very important. We're going to start from the end of that phrase by looking at the faith. Because that's going to be the focal point of what the unity is all about.

The faith was, as we mentioned in Ephesians 4-5, a specific set of doctrines taught by the apostles. It isn't just the unity of those people who happen to believe three or four doctrinal things, and they can't agree on the rest, but we'll call it good. No, there is a specific set of doctrines, rather extensive, that the apostles laid out, and it includes those things. Now, as we go through that, that is also why when we gather together that we don't just sit together and look at each other and talk about miscellaneous things, but there is an explicit and deliberate focus on content of what we're teaching.

Why? If that's the faith. There's something else too, and that is that there is a unity of the faith. The unity of the set of doctrines. We're going to see as we look at the next section in verse 14, there's a contrast, a negative statement of what it doesn't look like. But for now, the unity of the faith, even to the point that last week when I was wanting to teach something, before the week was done, I sent something out to each of the other elders.

I said, hey, this is what I intend to teach. I want you to check it out. Do a doctrine check for me. Why? Because we don't want to just teach anything. We don't want to just teach what Vern thinks. We want to teach the set of doctrines that the apostles laid out and spelled out in God's Word. We want the unity of the faith. The singular unity of the singular faith. We want to teach what God's Word says and nothing different and nothing less.

That implies lots of things, like it implies that you can know what God said. It implies that a whole bunch of different ideas is not God's intent. Now, we showed this list also, but we included it on page three of your handout, of different passages throughout the New Testament where there's continued reference to the faith. What I just like to look at because it's so direct and so emphatic is Jude 3.

Jude says, I urge that you contend, and he uses a word that means like an intensive Olympic effort, I urge that you contend with an intensive Olympic effort on behalf of the faith, singular, that was once for all hapax, once given perpetually valid, once given perpetually valid, delivered to the saints. That's the faith that he's talking about.

That one. Singular. As Paul is writing to the church of Corinth, what's their problem? Lots of division over lots of things. So what does he come, he just gets through saying, Hi, I'm Paul, it's good to see you guys, you know, you're saints and all that.

He gets into verse 10, and he tells them this, and I quote from the King James because I think that particular translation versus the others does a real good job of conveying the point that's written into the Greek text. Now I beseech you, parakaleo, means to come alongside, okay? Brethren, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ that you all speak the same thing. and that there be no divisions among you, and that you be perfectly joined together in the same mind and in the same judgment, in the same mindset, same thinking, and the same judgment, the same understanding of things as they apply.

How about that? Here's a church that's got everything scattered all over the place. He says, this is what I'm urging you towards. One teaching. The faith. A singular set of doctrines. Now is that narrow-minded or what? Yeah, that's exactly what he had in mind. It's narrow-minded because it's God's mind. It's singular.

God is not confused about these things, nor is He unclear. He has revealed these deliberately and not by accident. He didn't say, oops, I let that out of the bag. He deliberately revealed these things and He says, I want you to be of one mind and one understanding and nothing less and nothing else.

Now, unless you think that this is something that you can just have on a CD or floppy or just put it in a book and that that's good enough, this set of doctrines is not just some set of cold hard doctrines that you get nailed down and lay on the shelf to gather dust. But he makes it personal.

That set of doctrines connects up with an intensive knowledge of the Son of God, Epigonosis. Gnosis was knowledge. Epi is an intensifier. A deep knowledge of the Son of God. That is what we're aiming for, folks. Yes, to believe. You believe that Jesus died for your sins and was buried and rose again. You believe that, you're saved. Now, that's great.

You need to have an intensive knowledge, a full knowledge of the Son of God. So he couples that up. He says, The people in the church are not only going to understand things doctrinally, but it's going to be personal. They're going to have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ that is growing in intensity and in depth and in understanding. That's what's going to typify the church. Now, just to add to your notes on your handout on page four there, Philippians 3, 7-11, we went through a couple years ago.

That focuses on the individual knowledge. Paul says that I might know him. That's his own knowledge, right? Personal knowledge. This is together knowledge, that we together might know him. Isn't that interesting? There is growth together, as well as individually. There is knowledge together, as well as individually. To a mature man, this is adding on another perspective to the understanding that Paul is wanting to convey here.

In Colossians 1.28, he spoke of maturity, using the same word, for every individual believer in the body of Christ. How did he spell that out?

Every, every, every, three times in Colossians 1.28. The individual down to every last one.

Now he makes the point, the church as a body, with Christ as the head, is a single person. saying that body has matured. As a church body, there is not only individual believers who have a maturity in Christ at some level, but the aim is as believers, together, we have a maturity in Christ.

Both. Both are taught. What's interesting is here, here is the all. Everyone is included. There isn't some believer who's an exception, who's left out. There isn't some special group that these are the mature ones and the rest of them we don't care about. It's every one, each. Now, what's the standard of that maturity? What does that maturity look like? He doesn't leave that to guessing. The measure of maturity is the person of Jesus Christ.

And that's one of the things that Paul makes abundantly clear in other places where he writes as well. The things that we as human beings are inclined to be impressed by. Oh boy, they've got a great building. Oh, you should see the numbers that they've got. Some years ago, let's see, I think it was fall of 96, Nancy and I went to hear Rick Warren speak.

And he said that when he was first starting off, he'd just gotten out of seminary, and he said to this fellow who was the first guy he was going to talk to in this new area where he was going to start a church, He says, I'm going to start a really big church. Want to join me? And he just went around like that and just got, and now he's got this massive church.

He said he had 10,000 people in the church before they got a building. It just kept going to church, you know, schools and, you know, renting auditoriums and things of that sort. Really huge. I mean, we're talking that the church is well into the five digits at this point in time. The guy has sold something around 20 million books on a purpose-driven life. Big church. Guess what? Is that what you see here?

The measure is not by anything that human beings will measure. We will not necessarily be impressed by the numbers, but the measure is Jesus Christ, the person of Jesus Christ. And that's not something you can develop statistics on very well. It's not something you can count the money from.

Christ is the single standard that he puts in place here. He says, how do you measure this? Christ. That's the standard. That's how we compare and measure these things. There isn't anything superficial or worldly that we can make measure with and really count. It isn't even the Lord says, hey, you know, there's this little special spot of real estate here in Denver. See that little place right there? You see that? There we go. Right there. And when you come right to this little spot here, that just warms the cockles of God's heart, right?

No, there isn't anything special about the real estate. I'm glad for the building. I am glad like crazy for the deacons who take care of things so that we have a place to meet and, you know, we don't have ice ages and things like that in here. But in spite of that, that little piece of real estate is not what God's looking for.

He said, what's the measure? It's not the little spot on planet Earth that you gather in or the building or what the colors of the tie or robes or anything else that anybody wears. It is instead the person of Jesus Christ. That's the measure. Him. Eternally to be the measure. Always Him.

Think about that. We think about evangelism. There's a lot of churches that are really focused on that. What's interesting is, as we look at this passage, evangelism is one of those gifts that are listed, right? Given to the church. What's it to do? To build up the body of Christ. Not by numbers, but by maturity with Christ as the measure. How about that? Evangelism is to be targeted in the direction of a mature body. Ah, very important. Focus upon evangelism that just says, hey, I want to get people saved.

After that, I don't care. I just want to get them saved. It's a little bit like having parents in hospitals, and the only thing they're for is just have babies. What do you do with them after that? I don't know. Let's just have more of them. Okay? Boy, I tell you, Nancy at one point in time, and I can tell the story because she's not here this morning, Nancy, at one point in time, said, how many kids would you like? And I thought for a minute, I said, six. She never asked me again. But the thing is, I mean, you know, I'd be happy with just a gazillion kids. I just love kids. And so but anyway, if you really look at this, you've got to raise them. You've got to you have to have a place to bring them up. And, you know, there's a lot to be done.

And notice that the focal point of Paul's message He doesn't cut evangelism out, but the focal point of the evangelism is not just to get a bunch of people through the door. He says the focus of evangelism is to have a mature body of Christ. Very important perspective. Scripture doesn't say to us, hey, you know, you've really got to get every message. You've got to get the gospel worked in and you've got to pound people over the head with it. It's amazing that some churches, every single Sunday, the sermon ends up being an evangelistic sermon.

You've been there? You've seen that? They'll end up with an altar call, kind of like this. Well, these days, some of the churches are getting more sophisticated than that. And so they'll say, well, we've got to have really big churches. So we've got people writing books like this. Here's this other seeker-sensitive churches. We've got things like that going on. I went through business school. I got an MBA some years back. And they taught you, here's all the demographics and here's how to, you know, market things. And you know, all that stuff is really phenomenal if you're trying to sell Cheerios or something.

It is not how God intends to spread the gospel. It is not intended to build up the church. Nonetheless, that's what people have done. So, they're selling Jesus. Not good. Not good. Instead, while evangelism should indeed take place, It's so that those who become believers, Paul says individually, Colossians 128, everyone comes to maturity in Christ. And as we see in this passage here, it should be 11 through 13, by the way, in this passage here, the entire church body maturing in Christ. That's God's intent. That's God's intent.

As we look at the pattern of what Paul is moving towards here, he is going to describe in the next passage that we'll take a look at farther down here. In 14 through 16, he's going to start off with saying, what does that not look like? And he's going to then say, what does it look like? Let's put some meat and substance on this so that we understand.

So we're looking at this passage here to tell us that here's the purpose of the church. He's going to put the focus here on to the unity of the face, to the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man. Notice if we compare 2 Corinthians 3.18, but we all, and we all, that's the church, right? With unveiled face, clue, no law, okay? Beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord. Beholding as in the Word, okay? The glory of the Lord in the Word. are being transformed from the same image from glory to glory.

What's the standard of maturity? Christ. Christ is the standard of maturity. You can't measure that with numbers of people in the church service or how many services we have or by what comes in the offering box. Christ is the measure. And that's why you can't just get accountants in and demographers to tell you if the church is growing. You've got to look at this word. Nothing less, nothing else, certainly nothing more.

As we look at the next passage, and we won't do that today. That's good news, right? Okay, as we look at the next passage here, we're going to see, here's going to tell you as a result. Okay, here's the outcome, folks. He's going to start off in verse 14 telling us what the negative is. What does that look like on the negative side? It doesn't look like this is how he starts off. And then he goes into the last half that we'll examine. It does look like this when you're measuring things by Christ as the standard of maturity within the church body. This is what it looks like. And he's going to spell that out for us. Now, let's see if I have enough voice here. Try to do a song. And if I can bark it out well enough for you to learn it, I'll have you join with me in a minute here. Apostles and prophets, they gave us the facts. They wrote the epistles, the Gospels, and Acts.

These are the gifts that our dear Lord gave. The body to build, the loss to save, were not to be tossed. by wind and wave, but growing in Him because our Lord gave. Evangelists telling the good news to all, how Jesus the Savior can save from the fall. These are the gifts that our dear Lord gave, The body to build, the lost to save, Were not to be tossed by wind and wave, But growing in Him because our Lord gave. Won't you stand with me, okay? The shepherds as teachers equipping the flock, Explaining the word, we're built on the rock. These are the gifts that our dear Lord gave. The body to build, the lost to save. We're not to be tossed by wind and wave. but growing in Him because our Lord gave. These are the gifts that our dear Lord gave, the body to build, the lost to save. We're not to be tossed by wind and wave, but growing in Him because our Lord gave.

Lord, we thank you as we look at this passage. You gave, Lord. You gave when we were identified with you. You gave through the instrument and will of your Holy Spirit. You have given to this body. And the intent is not that we impress the world but that indeed you look upon us and say, yes, yes, that is the very image of me. That you look upon us and you say, yes, that is a body that is indeed being transformed from glory to glory because they're beholding me. We thank you for that, Lord. What a marvelous, precious, and wonderful privilege we have because of what you gave. In Jesus' name, amen.