Tonight to the book of Isaiah chapter 49. Our text will be the first six verses of Isaiah 49. You'll find this if you're using the church's Bible on page 609. And if you're able, I'll ask that we stand and together we will worship God by carefully and reverently hearing him speak to us in this public reading of Holy Scripture. Isaiah 49 verse one. Listen to me. Oh, coastlands and give attention. You peoples from afar. The Lord called me from the womb from the body of my mother. He named my name. He made my mouth like a sharp sword in the shadow of his hand. He hid me. He made me a polished arrow in his quiver. He hid me away. And he said to me, You are my servant Israel, in whom I will be glorified. But I said, I have labored in vain. I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity. Yet surely my right is with the Lord. and my recompense with my God. And now the Lord says he who formed me from the womb to be his servant to bring Jacob back to him and that Israel might be gathered to him. For I am honored in the eyes of the Lord, and my God has become my strength, he says. It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob and to bring back the preservative Israel. I will make you as a light for the nations that my salvation may reach to the end of the earth. Amen. This is God's word. Let's pray briefly together. Oh, Father, we ask that this very light that is spoken of in this text would be cast on us on our lives, on our hearts, that our needs may be exposed and that your grace may be brightly illumined so that we may, by putting our faith in you, walk until we reach the land of heavenly light. We ask this in Jesus' name. Amen. You may be seated. There is a stretch of water off the coast of Vancouver Island in British Columbia that, about 100 years ago, was called the Graveyard of the Pacific. In the 19th century, this stretch of coastline witnessed something like 500 shipwrecks. It was famous as a dangerous place for sailors. In 1906, there was a particularly bad accident. The SS Valencia went down completely with 100 men, women, and children on board, and all lives were lost. And in the aftermath of that accident, the authorities decided it was time to improve the situation as best they could, and they built a lighthouse. I've actually seen that lighthouse because the stretch of coastline has been turned into an amazing hiking trail that some friends of mine and I traveled some years ago, and a really beautiful place. waterfalls, old-growth forests, beaches, whales off in the ocean, just an incredible place. But it wouldn't have been an incredible place at nighttime in a storm, in a ship with nothing but a compass and a stopwatch and a map. An absolutely terrifying situation, if you can even imagine it. And one can only surmise the joy that an experienced sailor would experience in any kind of rough weather in that area after the lighthouse was installed and the steady sweeping beam was visible through the thick rain, the waves, and the wind. What a reassurance. What a source of hope and safety. This text is a lighthouse text. It's a text designed for sinners who understand their spiritual need and don't know the way out of it. It's a text designed for those who feel themselves to be caught not in the graveyard of the Pacific, but in the even more deadly graveyard of human sin and rebellion against God. Isaiah is a book filled with the threatenings of God's judgment against specifically the sin of Israel at that time, but more generally the sin of humankind that will be dealt with one way or another, both in this life and in the life to come. And to such as have an awareness of the great storm of sin and judgment that this life is, apart from God, Isaiah 49 stands out as a beautiful lighthouse, a reason to have hope, a reason to believe that there is a way to safety. The speaker in Isaiah 49 is, at first glance, the prophet Isaiah himself, and you'll notice his audience is not what you might expect. Listen to me, O coastlands, and give attention, you peoples from afar. Isaiah is aware that he's addressing not his neighbors in Jerusalem during the reign of Ahaz and Hezekiah and Manasseh. He's addressing very deliberately those who he will never personally meet, those who live in places where he himself will never travel. Isaiah literally is saying that his audience are Gentile nations that in his own lifetime will not have the word of God, but in the future, will be blessed with the Word of God. He's speaking to us in a very personal way today. Listen to me, O Coastlands, and give attention, you peoples from afar. That's us. And then as Isaiah continues speaking, we keep thinking, who is actually speaking in this prophecy? The Lord called me from the womb. Various prophets are described in that way, including Jeremiah and Paul. No doubt it would be true of Isaiah. He made my mouth like a sharp sword. Certainly Isaiah's mouth was a sharp sword to pronounce God's judgment on human and especially Israel's sin. Verse 4 talks about how he labored in vain, and certainly Isaiah did have ministry discouragements. Verse 5 talks about how the Lord formed him from the womb to be his servant and called him to bring Jacob back to him. In a certain way, Isaiah's ministry was to bring Jacob back to God. But as these things build up, we're constantly thinking, could it really be Isaiah himself that he has in mind here? Isaiah who takes it on himself to address the whole world with this prophecy? Isaiah who speaks of his own ministry in such highly exalted and intense fashion? And then we get to verse six, and we really realize that Isaiah cannot be the speaker in this verse, because here God says to this person that it is too light a thing for this servant to merely minister to Jacob and Israel. It is fitting for the dignity of his person to be a light to all the world. And it is simply a historical fact that Isaiah had no ministry to Babylon, no ministry to Assyria, no ministry to Egypt, no ministry to Greece, no ministry to any of the far-flung corners of the world either at that time or this. Isaiah himself was not a light to the nations. And so we are clued in to realize that it's not Isaiah's voice that we're hearing directly here. Actually, Isaiah is writing these things on behalf of an even greater person than he. Just to make the long story short, Jesus Christ himself is speaking through Isaiah here. He's the servant of the Lord. He's the long-promised Messiah. He's the main character in this whole prophecy. And it is perfectly in keeping with what Isaiah has been teaching elsewhere, that our focus and our faith would be directed not towards someone like Isaiah, heroic, noble, wise, and good as he was, But to someone even greater than him, someone still coming, a great king, a great prophet, a great priest in whom all the spiritual blessings that God has designed for his people are stored up. This is Jesus Christ who's speaking here. And what Jesus Christ is especially concerned to tell us is about a conversation that he is having with his father. Jesus reflects on his early life in the first few verses, how the Lord called him from the womb. In verse four, we have a glimpse of Jesus' ministry difficulties and discouragements, how he felt that he had labored in vain. And then in verse five, he tells us how the Lord heard his prayer concerning those discouragements and answered him. And when you put all those various pieces together, what we learn is, is that we can place this prophecy quite accurately in the middle of Jesus earthly ministry. Isaiah's disciples in the 700 years or in the eighth century BC could not have turned to mark chapter nine, 10, 11, and 12. the way we can to place this prophecy, but they would have come to something of the same conclusion, that this is a glimpse of the inner life of the Messiah, a glimpse of his thoughts, a glimpse of his experiences, his memories, his prayers, and his assurances received by the ministry of the Spirit from the Father. And this conversation belongs somewhere in the course of his ministry, not at the beginning in his birth, not at the end, at his resurrection and exaltation, not at the climax of his sufferings, but somewhere in this middle period of his earthly ministry. We're privileged having the four Gospels in our Bibles and in our minds familiarity to be able to place it even a little bit more specifically in those years of ministry where Jesus went about doing good, healing all that were oppressed by the devil, as Peter says. And that's the setting for these conversations that are unfolding here. So what we have here is a lighthouse text where Jesus himself addresses the entire world, especially us, and addresses us to show us how the light of the gospel reaches us from him. And he does so by letting us get an inside perspective of his own thinking, his own prayers, and his own conversation and relationship with his father. That's the way this lighthouse works, so to speak. Now that we have that basic framework in place, we're going to look at these verses and there's four particular, shall we say, rays of light, beams of light from this lighthouse that you should appreciate in faith and help you put your trust in the Lord Jesus Christ personally. Verses one to three shows us the preparation of the Lord Jesus for his saving work. Halfway through verse one, Jesus recalls that the Lord called me from the womb from the body of my mother. He named my name. Now, in general way, that's true of all of us. Psalm 139 says that the Lord has fearfully and wonderfully made us knitting us together in our mother's womb. And certainly the Lord knows our name in advance in the sense that he knows what our parents will call us before our parents make that choice. God has that kind of knowledge of all of us. But this is a particular instance of that divine knowledge that is especially precious to us. It's basically a reference to the fact that God sent the angel to Joseph and told him, while Jesus was in his mother's womb, here's what you're going to name the child. His name will be called Jesus. Why? Because he will save his people from their sins. And this is one of the ways that Jesus was prepared for his ministry. Verse 2 tells us about his training and education. Jesus was going to be a preacher, a minister of the gospel, and for that he would need a mouth like a sharp sword. His mouth would be a terrible weapon against God's enemies, against sin, against high-handed sinners opposing him, and against the sins even that indwell the heart of his people. And for that he would need a mouth like no other. And you remember in the Gospels the way that people said, we never heard a man speak like this. Well, The reason that Jesus was able to speak in such an arresting and effective manner was that his father had been carefully preparing him, honing him like a special sword to a fine edge so that his enemies would suffer their fate. It says here that he made me a polished arrow. Now it's not close up combat, but distant combat in view. And we see here that the Lord is equally fitted for that kind of ministry. A polished arrow would be an arrow that's not merely spat out of the carving work, but finished off nicely so that there'd be no stray bits, no stray splinters or anything like that that would affect the way the arrow flew. It would fly straight. And Jesus is saying, this is the kind of ministry that I am prepared to exercise. Not a half-hearted, ineffective, lax ministry, not an unremarkable ministry, not a failed ministry, but a terrifying ministry to God's enemies, and a cheering and heartening ministry to God's friends. You'll notice these preparations happened in privacy. In the shadow of his hand, in a quiver, It's a lovely summary image for Jesus' years of quiet preparation, where we get only tiny glimpses in some of the gospels of those intervening years between Jesus' birth and his public commencement of ministry. We get that one glimpse in Luke of his 12th year in the temple. But other than that, everything that took place in Jesus' early life and education happened in obscurity. And there he is quietly working in his father's shop, quietly attending synagogue every Saturday, quietly going through the daily rhythms of ordinary biblical piety, quietly growing, quietly learning, quietly gathering experience, quietly becoming the polished arrow and the finely sharpened sword that would please his father. And then comes the day of his ordination, so to speak, his baptism in verse three, where publicly the Lord says, you are my servant. It wasn't exactly what the father said, but the effect is very similar. Heaven's open, the spirit descended like a dove. Jesus looks up and his father says, in the hearing of all present, this is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased. Just to translate that into different imagery, you are my servant, Israel. Just like in the first, Jacob was called Israel as an individual because he represented what would become a great nation. So now the Messiah is called Israel, though he's only one person. He, in his life and person and ministry, really sums up and represents the whole nation, the whole people of God. And it is as Israel, God's firstborn son, that he will work for the glory of his father in his public ministry. He's well prepared. That's one ray of light. How is that a ray of light to you? Well, it should help you grasp that Jesus is not a kind of off-the-shelf, make-it-at-home, half-baked savior. You know, they have those things at the store, half-baked stuff. It's handy, you know. It's in the fridge, you bring it home, you finish it off, and then it looks like you made it fresh, but you didn't have to work with flour and yeast and all the rest. It's handy. Well, Jesus isn't handy. He's not a DIY savior. There's lots of DIY religions out there. I was reading on the internet, you know, I mentioned this guy. I got a lot of feedback about this. I mentioned this guy, Brian Johnson, who's inventing all sorts of ways to never die. A lot of you talked to me about him later, because it's so crazy and ridiculous. Well, he was on this week about how he's inventing a new religion. You know? He's a DIY savior. Don't go anywhere near, don't touch that with a 40 foot pole is what they would say in Ireland. Don't go anywhere near that. But how different is Jesus? 700 years before he was speaking through his own prophet Isaiah to announce the way that his father would lovingly and carefully and meticulously prepare him to be exactly the savior that his people needed and his purposes suited. and he has made him so and authorized him. So he's the public, official, authorized, divinely approved and well prepared savior that you need. There's a beam of light. A second beam of light is in verse four where we get a little window into Jesus perseverance in his ministry. You know, Jesus' ministry was not always easy, and it's not difficult for anyone who's read the Gospels to understand that he might say at certain points, even in his own heart, I have labored in vain. You know, there's that moment in John's Gospel when Jesus is left by all the crowds, and he says to his own 12 disciples, will you go away too? It just seemed like a total failure. Outwardly speaking, it really seemed that way. And even when the crowds were around, it was clear that they didn't understand what he was saying. And there were enemies circling, and his own closest disciples were constantly blundering about. And Jesus says, actually in very strong language, I have labored in vain. It's the word from Ecclesiastes, vanity, vanity, all is vanity. It's just useless wind. That's what it felt like. It's even stronger in the next line when he says, I've spent my strength for nothing. That's the word from Genesis 1. The earth was without form and void. It's just nothing. There's just nothing there at all. That's what it seems like. And ministry feels like that sometimes. And it felt like that for Jesus. It's not working. There's no fruit. There's no results. I can't get this stuff through their thick heads and their even thicker hearts. And the forces of evil and darkness seem only to grow stronger. But what does Jesus do? Does he give up? Well, no, he provides us an amazing example of faith. He says, surely my right is with the Lord. The word right is the word judgment. I think the right way to understand this phrase is that Jesus is saying, I will leave it to the Lord to assess and evaluate my ministry. I won't have a crowd-o-meter at home. I won't have a notch for every time I get an amen. I won't have a little compliments versus criticism tracker that I carry around with me. You know, all those things in our ministry as ministers, but in whatever station we're called to serve the Lord in, we do have those things in our lives, right, where there's little markers of success or failure. But at the end of the day, who's the person who assesses our service? Well, Jesus said, I'm content to let the Lord judge me. My right is with the Lord, and he will measure my ministry well." And sure enough, he did, didn't he? God has raised him from the dead, the apostles were privileged to proclaim, and appointed him the judge of the living and the dead, because, among other things, Jesus' ministry pleased the Lord. Jesus said, my recompense is with my God. There's all these outward discouragements and failures, And there's all this suffering coming up, as I can perceive. But as Hebrews says, for the joy set before him, he endured the shame. Now think about what's the joy set before him. It's a phrase from Hebrews 12, speaking of Christ going to the cross. What's the joy? Is it the beatings? That's not the joy. The crown of thorns, the sour wine, having his garments, cast lots over by the Roman soldiers? Is it the mocking? Is it the trial? I mean, none of those things could possibly be the joy. It must have been the case that Jesus was exercising faith to see through those circumstances to the other side and recognize that it would be his father's good pleasure not to forget his labor of love, but to righteously reward him for his service. And like Philippians 2 says, precisely because he became obedient unto death, Therefore, God has highly exalted him and given him a name above every name. That was the joy set before him." An old preacher said, God set before Jesus a great jewel, and he framed it in a cross. And that's the Savior's perseverance. That's Christ's perseverance. And what a ray of gospel light that is for sinners. You know, one of the real troubles about being a sailor in a storm, I only know this from reading novels, you understand, I don't know this from personal experience, but the psychological torture of a 48-hour storm cannot be overestimated. Every moment, knowing that things could fall apart in the next minute, for hour after hour after hour, wet, tired, unable to sleep, unable to eat, unable to stand still, unable to do anything because of the darkness and the trouble and the extreme danger. And you just feel like giving up. And sin can be like that too. Sin and this world can be like that. We just feel like giving up. But one of the rays of gospel light that this lighthouse text shines on you is both the example and the character of Jesus Christ who experienced those storms himself and left an example of how to go through them to God's glory. He didn't neglect prayer. This is what this verse is. It's prayer to the Lord. I have labored in vain. I've spent my strength for nothing in vanity. He's speaking to his father here in prayer. And in his prayer, exercising faith that God will evaluate him and God will reward him. What an encouragement. You know, moms, don't give up. Your right is with the Lord. Your recompense is with your God. Just to give you one example, just don't give up. But at the same time, don't try to handle your responsibilities and challenges in your own strength and unbelief. Look to the lighthouse, Christ. who shines on you the light of his own persevering life. The next ray of light comes to us in verse five, and here the Lord Jesus is about to share with us what his father has told him in response to his prayers. But before he gets to the father's response, he gives us a little introductory comment, and that comment comes in verse five, and it teaches us the purpose that filled Jesus life as the Messiah. And now the Lord says, and again, he's just about to say it, and then he feels the need to say lots of things about his father, who's gonna give these words to him in verse six. This is the Lord who formed me from the womb to be a servant. Reminding us there of God's purpose in providentially ordering every affair in his son's life. Discouragement, adversity, reversal, all of it set in the context of a God who, by his providence, ordains everything that comes our way. Not only providence, though, but specifically calling and mission. What was the purpose of the Lord in Jesus life? To bring Jacob back to him that Israel might be gathered to him. What a ministry. What a ministry, that the ancient promises would not be forgotten, the ancient prophecies would not drop to the ground, that the true religion would not be lost in this sea of polytheism and paganism and imperial ambition that filled the ancient world. One person is going to bring back Israel. An incredible calling. And you know, if you sign up for an incredible calling, would it utterly surprise you that there's some difficulties along the way? I mean, do Navy SEALs sign up expecting that they're gonna get five-star hotels and business class travel everywhere? I mean, that's just not how it works. You've got a great calling, and it comes with adversity. That's part of the package. And Jesus is saying here, in his own mind, as he reflects on his father's attributes and character and dealings with him, he's able to discern. My father's treating me in a purposeful manner here. It's not random. He's given me this great mission. And that comes with honor. That's the third part of verse five. I'm honored in the eyes of the Lord. My God has become my strength. This is an amazing thing to think about that all the adversity that was hurled at Jesus. It was the world's best effort to dishonor and shame him, but contained in those very insults were kernels of divine honor. One example that comes to mind from Matthew's gospel is when they had Jesus in the palace prison for a short period, and they covered his head with a sack of some kind and beat him. And while they beat him, they said, prophesy, who is it that struck you? Now, is there an awful lot of honor in being cruelly tortured by a bunch of palace guard thugs? No, there's not a lot of honor in that at all. I'm sure it hurt terribly. But even as they were hurling that abuse at him, they called on him to exercise his office as a prophet, prophesy. Who struck you? Well, the prophet's answer would be not so much the palace guard, but God in heaven laying the sins of his people on his shoulders. And whatever dishonor was hurled at Jesus was more than matched by the amazing honor that God was heaping on him as he fulfilled his calling. Here is Jesus, the King of the Jews. No, no, no, take that down. Don't let people see such an honorable title attached to this criminal hanging on a cross. But God would have it so. There's a lesson there, a ray of gospel light for you. And that is that there's a great deal of purpose in the way that God is working in your life if you're a Christian. You may not be a prophet. You're certainly not a Messiah. But you, too, have been formed from the womb for whatever God is calling you to do. And all of you have some calling from God. Kids, look at me. You have a calling from God, not a career aspiration to discover by introspection on What am I passionate about? Fine. Find out what you're passionate about. Totally fine. But that's not what life is about. You are going to find some way to serve the Lord. And in that you will encounter all kinds of trouble, one or another form. And it could be that in the prosecution of your calling in service to the Lord, you must not shirk the prospect of severe shame coming to you from a world that despises the God who calls you and the ministry to which he's called you. You may have to endure that. And when you do, you can shout and leap for joy because you are honored with the apostles to suffer for the name of Christ, because God does not call and then fail to honor his servants. That's a ray of gospel light here. My God has become my strength. God does not call someone and then fail to give the strength to fulfill their ministry. I hope some of you leave with a keen sense that maybe it's time for you to prayerfully ask God to help you sharpen your sense of what ministry you are called to. Could be something public and formal, could be something private, maybe there's different ways in which this could work out, but what are you called to? And how can you aim more purposefully at the honor that attaches to those who fulfill their calling? That's a ray of gospel light that comes across us in this text. And then verse six shows us the last ray of light. And here is the promise, the promise that attached to the Messiah's ministry. And I must say, we come now to a holy place because right here, Jesus is going to turn our attention to something we could never have known if it were not revealed by the grace of prophecy. Because Isaiah, the prophet is leading us into a heavenly reality. that we could never have guessed at on our own. The Father is going to speak to the Son, and we are privileged to overhear. There's three things in the text, something small, something medium, and something big. We'll start with something small. It is too light a thing that you should be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob. That's something small. Now to Isaiah's first disciples and the readers of this text in the original setting, that wouldn't have been something small at all. Isaiah has been unfolding to them the fact that Babylon is going to destroy Jerusalem, exile will fall on the nation, there'll be judgment and disaster, they're grieving and they're mourning even in advance, the fact that this judgment will soon fall on their beloved nation. And to hear that the Messiah will be called to restore the remnant of Israel is amazing. But God says that's actually the small part of this text. There's something bigger. The Messiah will not only restore the remnant of Israel, but he will be a light for the nations. This is why Isaiah started out addressing the coastlands and the peoples from afar, because the Gentiles are going to be the recipients of gospel light, and God's salvation will reach to the end of the earth. And even here to understand this text correctly, we need to see that still only medium. There's something even bigger because God says the reason I'm going to assign you that bigger job is because there's even something more important than the salvation of either Israel or the whole world. It is that such a person as God, the son would be assigned a duty befitting his station, rank and glory. That's the really big issue here. In other words, you shouldn't be thinking, Oh my, the salvation of Jerusalem is such a big deal. We better put out a real job search and executive head hunting company. We need to really spend a lot of time and money finding the right person for the job because only just a tiny few people are up to such a daunting task is restoring Israel. Well, no, leave that small time thinking and go even bigger. We need somebody who's big enough to save the whole world, to be the spiritual reality behind worldwide missionary preaching. Even that is the tail wagging the dog because it's the other way around. The question is not where can we find someone big enough for this task? It's where can we find a task big enough for such a person? He's the eternal second person of the Trinity, the beloved son of God from all eternity, infinite and unchangeable in his holiness, his wisdom, his righteousness. He's the king of creation. the firstborn of all creatures, he's the head of the universe, the angels worship him, he's the word of God, the wisdom of God, and it is God's good pleasure that the whole earth will be filled with eyes that can see his glory. It's not enough that just a few disciples cuddled, sorry, gathering around Isaiah, huddled around him, reading one manuscript at a time, should behold by faith a dim glimpse of his glory. That's not enough. It has to be bigger. It's not enough that in due time he'd be born of woman, born under the law, and that Israel would repent. That's not enough. There has to be more. There have to be apostles going through the world. There has to be worldwide churches. There has to be First OPC Sunnyvale with a whole pile of people who, unless God was determined to save Unless God was determined to glorify his son to this enormous extent, we'd be left in darkness. Where can we find a task big enough to match the dignity of this person? That's the question. And here's a simple way to apply this to you. Where is in your life a task big enough to match the dignity of this person? Consider for a moment your personal life of meditation on scripture and personal private prayer. Is it a big enough life to match the dignity of Jesus Christ? Consider the sins that are left unaddressed in your life. Sins of neglect, maybe. Sins of ignorance, maybe. Maybe ignorance, but maybe what looks like ignorance, but is really deliberate ignorance. You just don't want to think about it. sins that are private and nobody notices, sins that are more public, sins that are affecting other people. But you don't want to deal with it. You don't want to grow in holiness. You don't want to achieve something more in your spiritual life. You don't want to work harder for the Lord. You don't want to give anything more up. Why is it? Well, I would submit to you that underneath all of those kinds of problems is one thing. You don't actually realize how much Jesus Christ is worth. Could I put it like this? It is too light a thing for you to stay where you are spiritually. It's too light a thing for the son of God to bring you to the point you're currently at and leave you there. It's too light a thing for this church to be what it is now, and then fossilize and freeze in time, and 100 years later, still have the kind of ministry we currently have. There needs to be more, not because we're self-absorbed in our own glory, but because it's the only type of ministry that fits the glory of Jesus Christ. There has to be better preaching. It's too light a thing that sermons like this should be given. There has to be better preaching to fit the glory of Christ. There has to be better pastoral shepherding from your elders and ministers. There has to be better work of the deacons. There has to be better janitorial service. There has to be better everything. Why? Because Jesus Christ is not any old guy. He's the son of God, and he's worth absolutely everything that we have. There has to be better home missions and church planting. There has to be better foreign missions. Why? Because it's just not enough. And on the one hand, that should be incredibly motivating to you. It should make you busy as a Christian, but shouldn't also give you such joy that your salvation is not secured by something as small as your own personal individual relationship to the Lord. Your salvation, if you trust in Christ, is secured by this thought that God will not ever dishonor his son. and that any poor lost sinner steering his ship to safe harbor by the light of Christ gospel can be absolutely sure that God, the father, will not let that person miss. You can be sure. So just one question. Isaiah 2700 years ago, has written to you the people who live in faraway coastlands and appealed to you to recognize the glory of God's son. Will you live in his light? Let's pray. Father in heaven, we ask that you would please strengthen our eyes. Give us spiritual ability to see the glory of Christ to understand how enormous a thing it is that you have appointed him to be our savior. How great the work of worldwide ministry is not because we are so great, but because our savior is so great. Help us to see how brightly the gospel shines in his person and in his work and help us to long for the day when our own faith will be turned to sight. And instead of contemplating the glory of Christ in these written prophecies of scripture, we will, with eyes newly created, behold him face to face. May that day come soon, and may from now to then, the world be ever increasingly filled with the light of the knowledge of God in him. We ask this for your glory personally, in the name of Christ.