Amen. Once again, my heart is full. I love I love the music of our church together. Thank you for your singing today. Choir, what a blessing today. Christina, thank you for your special. What a sacrifice that saved my life. The blood of Jesus shed for me. Beautiful. In a moment, we're going to pray together and I'll give you an opportunity to give thanks to God and thank him for the blood of Christ, that if you know Jesus as your savior, the blood of Jesus Christ, his son, cleanses you from all sin. It's the blood of Jesus that purchased you out of your bondage. It's the blood of Jesus Christ that makes all the difference for you. Before we do that, let me mention just a couple of requests that we want to be remembering particularly this morning. We've been in contact with Donnie and Pat Barr about some needs that they have. Donnie's dad is not doing well and we want to be praying for him and his health. And then even more urgent than that is Pat Barr's mother is dealing with some internal bleeding and she was supposed to be flying home yesterday and got onto the flight and blacked out and they found out that she had some issues that needed immediate attention so they took her off of the plane, it hadn't left yet fortunately, and she's in the hospital on the south side of Atlanta. So let's be praying for Donnie's father, for Pat's mother and then just for the entire Barr family. I got a note from Tabea Villiger and many of you know Tabea was part of our church last year, also had been a teacher, a third grade teacher at our school and then was unable to stay because of visa issues and the Lord has redirected her. from her home in Switzerland. She is planning to be a teacher at a mission school in Albania. And I sent a note out a few weeks ago just letting you know about her ministry there and her need to raise support there. And support has come in, but not sufficient just yet. I think the total amount was like $15,000 for the year. And she has two weeks to raise that if she's going to be able to go and make that trip. So it's a significant one year need, and you have information on how you could give, you could give directly to the mission she's working with. And then we've mentioned if you'd like to give through the church and designate that, then we will just give it to the mission that she's working with. But let's be praying for Tabea. I'm so proud of her and the opportunity she has. I'm proud of her for taking that. It's not the easiest thing for her to do. She did a faithful job here. In fact, at the end of the year, twice on two occasions, she communicated with me and said, Pastor, I just wanted you to know I had the privilege of leading a student to Christ in my class today. The Lord used her here and now we would love to just see that exported. So let's be praying for her. And also, if you're burdened to give, I know there are a lot of things that we're supporting, but I thought you'd want to be aware of that. Pray for some physical needs. Pastor Abraham continues to have some physical challenges in Ghana. And then Pastor Isaac apparently had a really bad bout of malaria and seems to be recovering. But we just have a lot of needs. And we pray about them together. We have a brief time this morning. Tonight, we're coming back for our monthly praise service, and we'll be singing and sharing testimonies. And then we always end with a time of about 15 minutes of corporate prayer. And I certainly encourage you to come back so we can bear each other's burdens in that way. As Pastor Joe prayed this morning, let's pray for our brothers and sisters who are being persecuted for their faith. It's like reading the New Testament. You think about Paul, Saul at the time, chasing down believers, trying to drag them back, people losing their lives. And the Lord can use that to actually expand his kingdom. And you know, wouldn't it be amazing if some of these persecutors, like the Apostle Paul, would be caught in their tracks and won to Christ and become champions of the faith that they are opposing? Let's be praying for our brothers and sisters. Why don't you bow in prayer and ask for the Lord's blessing on the rest of our time together. Give him praise for the blood that he has shed on your behalf. And then after a moment of silence, I will speak for us corporately. Our Father, we approach you today by the new and living way that is sprinkled with the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ. We thank you that his death has brought us life, that his curse has brought us blessing. that His being counted guilty has allowed us to be counted as righteous. We are clothed in righteousness divine if we know Jesus as Savior. So in spite of ourselves and because of the Lord Jesus Christ, we approach you together this morning. We thank you. We thank you for the privilege that we have to Look unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith. And we look at him in song. We look at him as we study the Bible together. We will look at him through the Lord's table to conclude our service. We thank you for Jesus. We would have no hope without him. Thank you for the amazing price that was paid for us, that he went to Calvary to show his love and to bear God's wrath and to save our souls. We thank you also that we can bring our requests to you, and we bear each other's burdens. Some of them we know. We are burdened for the Barr family, for Donnie's father and Pat's mother, and just for the extended family and we pray for their encouragement minister to them today. They're not able to be with us, but I pray that by your spirit you would lift them up today with your love and comfort and also might they know that we love them and are upholding them in prayer. And Lord, you can bring healing or you can bring ultimate relief by taking them to your presence. We pray for your will to be done, but we pray for your help and we're confident of it. We thank you for it in advance. We do pray for Tabea and Lord, she would like to be here. But you have sovereignly redirected her. And now we pray for her as she is expecting and desiring to go to a difficult country to minister the gospel and to teach. I pray, Lord, that as you have opened that door, you would also provide for her. And I pray that she'll be amazed and that you will be glorified as you meet her needs. She's one example of someone that is being sent out of our church to do work elsewhere. We pray for others like Owen today. Here I get so moved to listen to songs about the blood of Christ and there are servants of yours that are in such hard places and Owen is denied the privilege of this kind of fellowship. But I pray that by your spirit you'd minister to him and encourage him and protect him and use him. We pray for part of our church family, part of our Christian family, who we have never met, but we grieve with them as they are suffering for their faith. And as Hebrews 13 commands us, we pray for them. And I pray, Lord, especially for those in Iraq, but also throughout the Middle East and in other dangerous places. I pray for you to sustain them. I pray that you will do what you have throughout church history and even in the book of Acts, that the blood of the martyrs will be the seed of the church and that. that Satan's minions will find that their opposition is futile and they're just fanning the flames. And I pray that many more would see the faith of these brothers and sisters in Christ and would come to know Jesus as Savior. That they would forsake the falsehood of Islam and that they would see, even through the love of Christians and through their devotion, and their grace under persecution, that they would be arrested and turned from being opposers to those who become proponents. I pray that you would use this very sad situation to bring people to the Lord Jesus Christ. Minister to those people and you can deliver them as you often did in scripture. And Lord, if you choose to allow them to lose their lives, I pray that you would sustain them. And we rejoice that they will be in the presence of the Lord, which is far better anyway. Minister to our brothers and sisters. those in Ghana, whether it's the project in Wa, whether it's the health of Pastor Abraham and Pastor Isaac, whether it's just their effectiveness. I pray for the gospel to spread there. I pray that you'll bless so many others. Bless Dax and Ruth. Bless our own missionaries that live with us, but go around the world to represent you. And I pray that your work will continue to expand. We have been praying and continue to pray with Jabez that you will Enlarge our borders, give us more influence here locally, so we'll see the gospel advance, run, and have effect in hearts, and save people. We so long to see people come to Christ. I pray that we'd be faithful in that endeavor, that we would joyfully share our faith, not just corporately through our efforts, but personally in our neighborhoods and workplaces. Give us the joy of seeing souls saved, we pray, and we will give you glory for all of these things. Lord, as we open your word now, I pray for you to be our teacher. And then as we break bread and pass the juice, I pray that our attention will be riveted to the Lord Jesus Christ, our only hope of salvation, our Lord, your son. We pray all of this in his name. Amen. And take your Bibles, please, and turn to 2 Corinthians chapter 3. Continue our series on our pursuit of godliness. Godliness doesn't happen by accident or by osmosis. It happens as we who have been saved entirely of God's grace, entirely God's work. But as we cooperate with him and we are laboring, disciplining, training ourselves to be godly, enabled by his spirit. Scripture says that we are looking into Jesus. A couple of weeks ago, we studied from Titus 2. And as we are becoming more godly and as we're trained by grace, we're taught to deny ungodliness. We are living between the two appearances of Christ. He came the first time in the ultimate display of grace. He will come a second time in the ultimate display of glory and We are looking backward and we're looking forward to Jesus as we walk the Christian life. It's all centered on Christ. Hebrews says, as we're running this race, we look unto Jesus. We grow as Christians through means of grace. OK, what we mean is. We have we have things that God has given to us that cause us to advance spiritually. So we change from in my case, I want to be less like Chris and more like Christ. And that happens through means of grace. We pray and we grow and we study the word and we grow and we come to the sacraments. That is the Lord's table. We break bread and and pass the juice and we remember the Lord's death until he comes. Even there, like in Titus, we're looking back to the cross and ahead to Christ's return. And as we're doing these things, we're growing. We have baptism and it reminds us of the price Jesus paid and our union with him and we grow. In other words, worship has a sanctifying effect. In your private life, when you worship, it grows you. It makes you more holy. When we come together for a service like this and we're singing praises and studying scripture, praying, giving testimony, it grows us. Specifically, and we're going to unpack this today, when we look to Jesus, when we're gazing on Christ, that is the thing that justified us in the beginning. And you might think of your salvation past. You have been justified by looking to Jesus if you have trusted Him as your Savior. You are being sanctified by looking to Jesus through the Scriptures. And then one day when He returns, Scripture says we will be like Him when we see Him as He is. So it is looking to Jesus that justified and is sanctifying and that will glorify us past, present and future. We started last week to study what I had hoped to be one message and we got in Isaiah six and and we ran out of time. And that's OK. It's such a beautiful passage. Today, we're going to be in Second Corinthians, chapter three, focused on verse 18. But I want us to understand the context. So I'm going to go ahead and read the entire chapter. Second Corinthians, chapter three. Context wise. Paul is writing and he's contrasting the Old Covenant with the New Covenant. He's contrasting the law with grace. He's contrasting the mosaic system with what Christ has done through his finished work on Calvary. And so you'll see kind of different descriptions of those two covenants as we read. And then we're especially going to focus on what Exodus 34 describes when it said that Moses would go into the presence of the Lord. And because he was with God, seeing him face to face, he would come down from the mountain and his face would be shining. All right, the presence of God changed him, it made a difference in his life. He would come speak to the Israelites, but because they were kind of overwhelmed by the glow, he would veil his face. And now Paul is going to use that event from history and he's going to use it as a teaching tool. He says, still to this day, unbelievers and he's talking about unbelieving Jews, but unbelievers, they have a veil over their eyes. It's like they're blindfolded. They hear the scripture and they don't perceive it because symbolically that veil is in the way. But he says, when we come to Christ, the Holy Spirit of God removes the veil so that we can see Christ clearly in scripture. And that makes all the difference. It saves us and it sanctifies us. Let's read together. Second Corinthians, chapter three, if you're using a few Bible page 965. And as we always say, if you're using a few Bible because you don't have one of your own, just take it home. It's our gift to you. I hope you'll make good use of it and we will replace it. Second Corinthians, chapter three. Are we beginning to commend ourselves again? Or do we need, as some do, letters of recommendation to you or from you? You yourselves are our letter of recommendation written on our hearts to be known and read by all. And you show that you are a letter from Christ delivered by us, written not with ink, but with the spirit of the living God, not on tablets of stone. That's the Old Testament reference to the Old Covenant. but on tablets of human hearts. Such is the competence that we have through Christ toward God. Not that we are sufficient in ourselves to claim anything as coming from us, but our sufficiency is from God, who has made us competent to be ministers of a new covenant, not of the letter, but of the spirit. For the letter kills, but the spirit gives life. Now, if the ministry of death carved in letters of stone, came with such glory that the Israelites could not gaze at Moses' face because of its glory, which was being brought to an end, will not the ministry of the Spirit have even more glory? For if there was glory in the ministry of condemnation, the ministry of righteousness must far exceed it in glory. Indeed, in this case, what once had glory has come to have no glory at all because of the glory that surpasses it. For if what was being brought to an end came with glory, much more will that which is permanent have glory. Since we have such a hope, we are very bold, not like Moses. who would put a veil over his face so that the Israelites might not gaze at the outcome of what was being brought to an end. But their minds were hardened. For to this day, when they read the Old Covenant, that same veil remains unlifted. Because only through Christ is it taken away. Yes, to this day, whenever Moses is read, a veil lies over their hearts. But when one turns to the Lord, the veil is removed. Now, the Lord is the Spirit. And where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom. You're used to where the Spirit of the Lord is. There is liberty. And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord, who is the spirit. Let's keep reading the first six verses of chapter four as I'll be making a brief comment about them. Therefore, having this ministry by the mercy of God, we do not lose heart, but we have renounced disgraceful, underhanded ways. We refuse to practice cunning or to tamper with God's word. But by the open statement of the truth, we would commend ourselves to everyone's conscience in the sight of God. And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled only to those who are perishing. In their case, the God of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers. OK, this tells you what that veil is. Satan has blinded their minds so that they can't understand to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For we proclaim what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Christ Jesus Christ as Lord with ourselves as your servants for Jesus sake. For God, he's going to go back to creation for God, who said, let lines light shine out of darkness has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." Okay, so he takes history. He says there was a veil that kept people from seeing Moses' face. Spiritually, that veil is retained over the eyes, over the heart, of unbelievers. So they hear the scriptures. They don't perceive it. They don't respond to it because the veil is still there. And then he says that veil is actually in the lost man. It's a work of Satan who has blinded their eyes so they don't perceive the gospel. Well, what hope is there then for lost people to come to Christ? And that's where he goes back to Genesis when he says the God who said, let there be light into a dark world does that spiritually not creating light, not using the sun or stars, but spiritually, He shines the light into dark hearts. And when someone is saved, spiritually, God has said, let there be light in that dark soul. And we have illumination. We have the coming of life and a darkened sinner has his eyes open, has his heart unveiled and comes to understand the gospel of Jesus Christ. I say this passage has everything to do with how we grow in godliness. Let's study it together. Very quickly, we started last week with a study of Isaiah. Worship confronts us with Jesus' majesty. Isaiah saw the Lord high and lifted up, and it was an awesome experience. He was amazed by it. When you spend time in the presence of God through Scripture, you'll be amazed. Beyond being amazed, you'll be humbled. We talked about the sinless angels are humbled before God because they are just creatures. How much more men who are creatures but are further humbled because we're sinners, we have every reason to to confess our sin and to see there is an infinite chasm between the creator and the sinner. Gazing on God humbles us, but also gazing on God purifies us because the Lord sent one of the angels to take. To take a call from the altar and to come and purify Isaiah's lips. Now, that was all kind of by way of introduction to what's coming next. And that is not only does worship confront us with Jesus majesty, worship conforms us. To Jesus image. We've read the passage. We saw that the context is that Paul is. Contrasting the old and the new covenant, but verse 18 has such a powerful description of how the Christian grows, let's read again now, verse 18. Right after it says the spirit of God brings liberty or freedom to us. He says this and we all that is every Christian. We all. With unveiled face, that's what it means, the open face. If you're used to the King James, the word means it's unveiled. It's alluding back to the veil. We all with unveiled face are beholding the glory of the Lord. We are being transformed into the same image. You get that. Let's simplify. We are beholding the glory of the Lord when we study Scripture. Because you remember that the whole discussion is when Moses is read, when the law is read. We read it not with a veil over our hearts. We have an unveiled, open face. We look into the Scriptures as in a glass, not a mirror, but it's as though we're looking through a glass. And as we behold the glory of Jesus, we are being changed into the image of Jesus. It's really not that difficult. When we see Christ in the Scriptures, we become like Christ. We expose ourselves to His work and to His character. And when we do so with understanding, and the Spirit of God is at work, we become like Him. We begin to reflect His image. And the goal of every Christian is that we would become more and more like the Lord Jesus Christ. And he says that happens from one degree of glory to the next. Truly a simple message, then we have the illumination. Of the spirit. He's discussed the veil and he keeps saying that the spirit of God does this, the spirit of God does this. In fact, he ends this chapter. After he says we're being changed from one degree of glory to another, he says, for this comes from the Lord, who is the spirit, the spirit does this work in our hearts. So what we call the doctrine. Of illumination. First Corinthians 214 says the unsaved man, the natural man does not receive the things of the spirit of God, it's foolishness to him, he can't understand him, he won't understand them because they're spiritually discerned. A lost person cannot, cannot in and of himself, apart from the illuminating work of the spirit, a lost man is not going to profit from the scriptures. His eyes are darkened, his heart is veiled. He needs something to illuminate. He needs God to turn the light on. All right. What's illumination mean? You're in a dark room and if you're going to have illumination, we turn the light on. OK, now this is very important because many times Christians don't understand this. They pray for the spirit to teach them something and they think that what they're getting is new communication. OK, you walk into a dark room. If you if you walk into a dark room and if you don't turn a light on, you're going to be stumbling, bumbling, you're going to be a mess. You need light. When you turn a light on, all of a sudden you see furniture appear. Now, did the light create the furniture? The light didn't create the furniture. The light revealed what was already there. OK, the spirit of God, when he does his illuminating work, when he opens our eyes, when he helps us perceive and apply the Scriptures, we're not getting new truth from him. But we are coming to understand the truth that he has already revealed in Scripture. Sometimes people pray and they want God to show them something new. I want God to show me something old that I haven't yet perceived. God, teach me what this word has always said. He opens our eyes, he illuminates us. Let's go ahead and turn back to Exodus 34 just for a second so we can see the historical illusion. This is actually the second giving of the law because Moses broke the first two tablets. Exodus 34. Page 75, if that helps, we'll start reading in verse 29. When Moses came down from Mount Sinai with the two tablets of testimony in his hand as he came down from the mountain, Moses did not know that the skin of his face shone because he had been talking with God. Time in the presence of God will change you. Verse 30. Aaron and all the people of Israel saw Moses and behold the skin of his face shown. They were afraid to come near him. But Moses called to them and Aaron and all the leaders of the congregation returned to him and Moses talked with them. Afterward, all the people of Israel came near and he commanded them all that the Lord had spoken with him in Mount Sinai. And when Moses had finished speaking with them, he put a veil over his face. Whenever Moses went in before the Lord to speak with them, he would remove the veil until he came out. When he came out and told the people of Israel what he was commanded, the people of Israel would see the face of Moses, that the skin of Moses face was shining. And Moses would put the veil over his face again until he went in to speak with him. So. We have this historical occurrence and now Paul is using that veil to describe the blindness of the unsaved man. When he hears the scriptures, we need the Spirit of God to do a work in hearts. Let me tell you, let me tell you, then, when you're praying for a lost person. OK, you pray and you're saying, God, would you please open their eyes? Would you please pray this prayer, Lord? Would you remove the veil from their hearts and let them perceive the truth of Scripture? Would you save them? How many times have you had a loved one and you give them the gospel and you give them the gospel and you give them the gospel and it feels like it's just not having any effect? And yet what you're doing is you're saying, God, I can just keep talking, but what I need is for your spirit to do something that's above my pay grade. I can't remove the veil. So God, I'm asking you to do something supernatural. Open their eyes. Take the veil away, say in their hearts, let there be light and save them. God, would you please do it? I know people get all agitated by what they think is Arminianism or Calvinism, and the terminology is not that helpful. But I'll tell you this, when you pray, God save my sister, save my son, save my parent, save my mother, you are praying like you believe that only God can do it. All right. And to use the terminology, I say everybody prays like a Calvinist. However, you may think when we pray, we say, God. They're not going to believe unless you do something. You say, I don't know how it all figures out with the tool of stuff like that. Don't worry about it, but pray for the spirit of God to do something amazing. Got to open their eyes. Because Satan has blinded them and they're not going to believe unless you pull the veil back. Would you save them, please? We need illumination. The same illumination begins at conversion, but it continues in my life. Why do I profit from Scripture now? Because the Spirit of God is my teacher. I mean, I love that. How cool is that? There's sometimes when I'm reading a book, in fact, I'm reading a book right now by a friend of mine. And if I don't understand something in the book, I can text him or call him or email him and say, would you please explain what you meant here? It's pretty neat to have a relationship with an author where you can actually ask what they meant. The Spirit of God who inspired the scriptures is the one who is my teacher. He opens my eyes. So I have a relationship with the author of Scripture and he helps me to perceive. That is the ministry of illumination. Now, what's my part? You remember, we keep saying spiritual growth is a syncretism. And what we mean by that is God's not doing the work by himself. Now, God is enabling me to be part of that process. What is my job? It's investigation. The spirit is working, but the spirit is working as I study Scripture. I mean, listen. If you say, Spirit of God, teach me the truth and you don't open your Bible, you're praying for something that's unbiblical. He's not going to just appear to you. He's not going to give you a vision. He's given you what he wants you to know right here. So we open the Scriptures and the Spirit opens our eyes and we begin to have a life changing interaction with the truth. So he says we are beholding the glory of the Lord. Where are we doing that? With our nose in the book. You say, man, I wish I could see Jesus. Yeah, you can open your Bible and see Jesus. Read the Gospels and see Jesus. Read the prophecies and see Jesus. Read Revelation and don't get all freaked out by trumpets and veils and bees. See Jesus in Revelation. You behold him through the scriptures. And as you are seeing him through scripture. You change into his image. OK, do you remember I said we're growing by means of grace? The more exposure you have. The more like Christ you will be. You say, you know, I want to be at a church where every Sunday I come and I learn a message that helps me grow. That's like somebody who wants to be a good athlete, and once a month they work out. It's like somebody who wants to get a tan, and you know, annually they lay out. It's not going to work that way. The more exposure you have, the more change you will have. If you want to be like Christ, you need more exposure to the Son. So you expose yourself to Him through the ministry of the Word today. After this service, we have another time where we're teaching the scripture in Sunday school. You say, why should you stay for Sunday school? Because it gives you more exposure to the sun and it's going to help you grow more. Man, that sounds legalistic. Sounds like you want us here. I want you exposed to the sun. Tonight is the one night a month we come back and we're going to sing. We're going to pray, give testimonies, and you have more exposure. You say, so it's all about church. No, church is a great place to do it corporately. But then individually you get into the word on your own. Some of you, you're busy, your mom's and life is hectic or you're businessmen and life is crazy. And you say, you know, all this sounds good on Sunday, but what do I do the rest of the week? You fight for some time in the word and you're not doing devotions. So you avoid a bad week. You know, it's not a rabbit's foot and If you don't spend five minutes in the Word, God puts a maloik on you, and all of a sudden, things start going badly. That's not Bible reading. Bible reading means, God, I just have a minute, but I want to see You. Just for a second, I want to see You. Show me something about Yourself. I want time with You. And it's not to check it off my to-do list. It's because I just want to be in Your presence, even just for a moment. Teach me something. You listen to Christian music. I love it on Sunday morning. But you listen to Christian music throughout the day. And you're listening to things that point you to Christ because you're exposing yourself to Jesus. And the more you hear of Jesus, He is honored. But you are transformed by meditating on the person of Christ. There's illumination from the Spirit. There's investigation into the Scriptures. Be serious about it. Be serious about it. Then there's transformation into the image of the sun. Second Corinthians 318 uses a word that it would be odd to you if we didn't have an English equivalent. The idea is metamorphosis. The Greek word, this is just a transliteration, an Englishized version of a Greek word. There's a metamorphosis that happens. You are changed by the scriptures. All right, we use we use the word to describe a drastic, miraculous change. It's like a caterpillar turning to a butterfly when you study Christ through Scripture and you expose yourself to who he is, you change. And it's a supernatural change. I'm telling you, there are Christians and they think they get saved. by the grace of God. And then the rest of their life, they're just working, working, working, following rules, doing certain things. It's like they take a worm and they try to pin wings on it. That is not sanctification. Sanctification is something the spirit of God does from the inside out. You're not merely conforming. You're transforming into the image of God. How is that possible? By the work of the Spirit. I'm not saying that responsibility and obedience and duty has no part. But all of that is me getting into the word and then saying that God, do something amazing and change, change me. I'm so sick of being a caterpillar. Would you change me into the image of your son? So that I can I can reveal him and his character in the way I live. It says this all happens progressively. We all with unveiled face behold, the glory of the Lord were transformed into the same image. From one degree of glory to another, it doesn't happen all at once. OK, we're we're not seeing perfectly, but progressively we are seeing and being changed into his image. Let me try to make this simpler. Beautiful statement from Ken Collier, who for years was the director of the Wilds, I've never forgotten the simplicity with which he presented this years ago. The Holy Spirit of God. uses the Holy Word of God to make us more like the Holy Son of God. That's what I've been trying to explain to you for 20 minutes. He did it in about 20 words. And no, this is to be the experience of every Christian, Paul says. We all do this. It's not just the Apostle Paul. It's not just pastors or missionaries. Every Christian grows this way. Come face to face with Jesus through the scriptures, through biblical songs, through the Lord's table. Today, when we remember Christ through his broken body and his shed blood, we are beholding him. As revealed in scripture, and then the spirit of God changes us. I don't have time to get back to Psalm 115. But Psalm 115, it makes fun of idols. It says, you know, they have eyes, but they don't see. They have hands, but they can't move. But after describing them, listen to what verse 9 says. It says, those who make them become like them, so do all who trust in them. That is a very perceptive point. It says those who worship idols become like those idols. Because worship changes you. You begin to become like the one you esteem. It's true in idolatry. How much more should it be true in genuine Christianity where you're beholding Christ and worshiping Christ and you become more like Him? Especially because you have the Spirit of God at work, whereas dumb idols are just dead. Changes you. I do have to have you turn for a second to First John, chapter three. I'll try to wrap this up quickly. First, John, chapter three. See what kind of love the Father has given to us that we should be called the children of God. And so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Now, listen to verse two. Beloved, we are God's children now. And what we will be has not yet appeared. But we shall but we know that when he appears, we shall be like him. When Christ returns, we'll be like him. Why will we be like him? Notice the end of the verse when he appears, we shall be like him because we shall see him as he is. When he appears, we'll be perfectly like him because we're seeing him face to face directly, not through a glass, not through the scriptures, but face to face. I've said that you look to Jesus and you are justified in a moment. We are looking to Jesus as we study scripture together and alone, and we're being changed into his image over time. And how does it all end? Either when Christ returns or when your heart stops beating. You will see Jesus. Not as revealed in Scripture. You'll see him face to face. And seeing Jesus perfectly will make you like him perfectly. You're not going to be God. but in your moral character, you'll be like Him when you are with Him and seeing Him face to face. In the meantime, from afar, you're looking to Him through Scripture and being more and more like Him, but it's seeing Christ that makes the glorification change and it's seeing Christ that makes the sanctification change during your lifetime. A glance at Christ will save, but it is the gazing at Christ that sanctifies And I would add one more. It will be the seeing of Christ face to face that will glorify. A few years ago, I meditated on this concept. In a poem. And it goes from past to present to future, from justification to sanctification, to glorification, we have looked in faith to Christ. beholding God's atoning Lamb. He for our sins was sacrificed. Thus we, though dead, have been born again. We still look each day to Christ, and by the unveiled view are changed. The Spirit wields the truth with might, conforming us to the Son, unstained. We will look one day on Christ. When he appears triumphantly, that blessed hope now purifies. Till seeing him, we like him will be. The chorus says, Jesus, your beauty fills our eyes. First looking, we were justified. Now gazing deeper sanctifies. Till face to face, we are glorified. You look to Jesus Christ and it changes you. It changes you. I want you striving to obey. I want you learning scripture. I want you casting off sin. But if you do it without your eyes riveted to Jesus, it's just your best effort and it's not good enough. We need to see Christ. We see him through the word. We're going to see him in a hymn. And then we'll end our service today, seeing him through the Lord's table. It's on purpose that Jesus said, I'm giving you an ordinance for you to partake in remembrance of me spiritually, you gaze to Jesus Christ today. And if you're a Christian, you'll become more like him if you're not a Christian. What you need is that first saving look. Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. While we partake of the Lord's table, if you don't yet know Jesus as your Savior, don't partake of the bread, don't partake of the juice. You spend some time in prayer and say, Jesus, I'm a sinner who needs to be saved. You don't need bread and juice, you need Jesus. Trust him as your savior. Those who know Christ, let's sing of him and then we'll partake of the Lord's table together. I'll ask the deacons to come and prepare to serve us. Let's behold the Lamb of God together through song and through the Lord's table. Amen.