(Presenting Christ #3) Fullness and Glory — Dana Congdon

Well, the Lord's been faithful to us again this year. And I understand not only our times of ministry in the morning and the evening, but the fellowship times in the afternoon have been very precious.

It's good to be together with the saints, the encouragement we receive, the joy of worshiping together, and just finding out what's going on in other places. I was particularly blessed last night by Lance's message, and then again this morning by our brother Stephen.

And I am charged with the last message after the messages have all been given. But the Lord is faithful, and if he is with us tonight, as I believe he is, he still wants to share with us some new angles, and then just some simple things before we leave.

The Fullness of Times and the Church as Christ’s Body

So we want to turn once again to Ephesians chapter 1, where we look at these verses and add to it the last verses of the chapter. Ephesians chapter 1, verses 9 and 10. He made known to us the mystery of his will, according to his kind intention which he purposed in him, with a view to an administration suitable to the fullness of times, that is, the summing up of all things in Christ, things in the heavens and things on the earth.

And then to the end of the chapter, where in verse 22 it says,. And he put all things in subjection under his feet, and gave him as head over all things to the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all and all.

And then I'd like us to go all the way to the end of the Bible, to Revelation chapter.

22, verse 17.

The spirit and the bride say, Come. Let the one who hears say, Come. And let the one who is thirsty come. Let the one who wishes take the water of life without cost. Let's just have another word of prayer.

Our Father, we thank you for the riches of the times we've had together. Indeed, it's a blessed thing for brethren to gather together in unity. Thank you for your presence, for your mercy, for your grace, for your quickening power.

Thank you for your protection and the encouragement we've received. Now we come again, once again, unto you, dependent upon the Holy Spirit, asking that you would give us further room and an appetite to know more about our glorious Lord.

Help us, Lord, in this hour. Quicken us, our tired bodies. Refresh us. Let our hearts hear even what you're speaking to us. We thank you for all that you have done for us already, and realize, as always, we're in the midst of a great move of God.

Oh, give us eyes and ears to see what you're doing in these days. We pray in Jesus' precious name. Amen. Here we see, at the very end of the Bible, a summing up. Here we see the church in such a position of fullness that she is called the Bride, and she is gathering, gathering, along with the Holy Spirit, saying, come.

Let him who wills come. Let him who is thirsty come. The church in fullness, gathering in her beauty by the Holy Spirit. And we believe that the days are coming that the church will be in such a place, that her invitation will be listened to.

The Church Gathering the Hungry to Christ

You know, we all probably have tried battling and sharing and preaching the gospel to our friends, some of you perhaps in some kind of an outreach meeting. You know a lot of times we receive a lot of resistance.

But in this tremendous last day, and in this tremendous mega-gathering that our God is doing to glorify his Son, it's true that there are those who are evil, those who prefer darkness rather than light.

But the strange thing is, we're finding all around the world, and also here in America, and even where I live up in New York, that there are many hungry people who are longing to see some light and some truth and some faith and some love.

And you don't even have to fight with them. You just need to tell them that Jesus is gathering them to himself. As a shepherd gathers a straying sheep, and these people respond. Sometimes I go up to Times Square Church.

You know, many of you have heard of David Wilkerson, and still he is alive. And even though elderly, sometimes shares magnificent messages. But no matter who is sharing there, they usually have an appeal at the end where they gather people up.

And there is a thousand people meeting there, three times on Sunday. And when they just put out their hands and say, now who, who is broken but wants to come to the only one who can heal you? Oh, people pile out of the balcony and out of the lower place and just come down and fall down on the floor in the front.

They kneel, you know. And people come and pray with them. In that evil city, New York City. But there's broken people who just are longing for somebody to say, come home, come unto me, all ye that are weary and heavy laden.

I'll give you rest. This is not just a local phenomenon. As we shared in our first message, there's a great mega gathering by the Lord of the harvest over these last 30 years. From 1970 to the year 2000, I presented some statistics of amazing numbers of conversions across the world in places whose names were not even quite sure where they are on the map.

And the Lord is doing wondrous things. Gathering people from the north, the south, the east and the west, gathering them into his kingdom. Oh, he is gathering even today. And we, whether we're Christians or maybe you're just a guest here tonight, perhaps you feel by the spirit he's gathering you.

You know, at times Christians are rebel sheep out alone somewhere on a hill and our Lord is always calling you home, gathering you to himself. If there was ever such a sense of love we get, it's when we see Jesus who has continued compassion now upon those sheep that are lost and straying around.

In New York City, everywhere I go, I see people straying, you know, actually, Julie and I, we just walk around in our neighborhood, which is quite a popular tourist place. And there's people with maps upside down and people just lost.

They have no idea they're going the wrong way. They don't know. People are lost all the time. Well, we get to direct people all over the place. But how wonderful if they all came to Jesus. That's the hope that they really need.

So anyway, we looked at this wonderful harvest and it's surely a sign of the last days that so many people are being saved. It's tremendous. If the statistics are right and if I even reduce it a little bit just to be conservative, there's going to be 50 million more harvested this year.

Fifty million. And over half of them, not by denominations and big ministries and big evangelistic and big mission groups, but over half of them will be saved and brought into a little house church somewhere.

An unregistered church, not even a church. Well, in Russia they call, you know, I go to this one place, they've got the 300 of these things they call the house of prayer because it's just a house where somebody lives and people come there and they pray and worship and preach the gospel.

And just millions of people being gathered by the Lord, even now at this point. But as we have heard, in fact, this morning was so wonderfully by our brother Steven. And as we've been reminded when Jesus, when it says that in the dispensation of fullness of times, God would gather all things or sum up all things in Christ, both which are in heaven and which are in earth.

We know that the Lord and his final purpose has something much more than to just gather sheep into a pen, as it were. He wants to gather us up into himself. There is this tremendous work going on right now.

Christ as the Sum of Justification, Sanctification, and Life

And especially among Christians, there is this transition where having been gathered unto the Lord, we're being gathered into the Lord where we've been gathered to the Lord and have experienced all of his goodness and grace and now being gathered into his life to the very place where we can say with sure testimony that Christ is our life.

So you saw the masterful development of examples in the New Testament this morning from our brother, as you shared with us, the Galatians who were holding onto a thing, what was the thing they had? Justification by faith, right?

And that because of that, somebody was coming along and saying, oh, you need to be circumcised for justification. And they were getting confused holding onto that doctrine, you see. And Paul was saying, but what you really need to see is that you've been clothed with Christ who is your justification.

You see, and once you see that it's not the doctrine of justification, but it's Christ who is your justification, makes a lot of difference. Did you catch that? That's when Christ becomes the sum of your justification.

And then he went on to talk about the Corinthians who were called saints, but they seemed anything but saints. And he was trying to tell the Corinthians, now it's not a question of being sanctified through effort or something, but it's that God has made Christ sanctification to you.

It is Christ our sanctification. And to the Colossians, it is Christ our perfection. And to the Philippians, it is Christ who is our life. And in 2 Corinthians, our ministry is the writing of Christ and the impartation of Christ into a person's life, not just the ministry of the word.

So throughout our Christian life, whether it's the ministry that we're involved in or whether it's these things that we've understood about our salvation, the Lord wants to make them real in himself so that we all say Christ is our life.

Christ as the Center of the Whole Scripture

So now that's a whole spiritual summing up the Lord's trying to do. Now, we've been talking about that and you've heard even about that freshly this morning. Then we also shared about the fact that the whole of scripture speaks of Christ, shows us Christ from the very Old Testament through the New Testament.

Well, now we want to go back to Ephesians because I feel we should pick up some pieces just so that we can all understand some of these great terms that are being used. The summing up of all things in Christ, the fullness as is presented to us when we read in Ephesians and we saw that in the fullness of times, God would sum up all things in Christ.

As we said the first night, the actual Greek there says literally head up all things in Christ. So now if you were a Greek as they were in the days when Paul was writing this and you read that in Ephesians and then came to verses 22 and 23 of chapter 1, you'd immediately get the association here.

When it says Christ has been made head over all things to the church, it's that same word kephalos that was used back in chapter 1 verse 10, heading up. So part of the heading up process is that Christ begins by being head over all things to the church.

Now we don't always take that seriously but he seriously wants to be the Lord and master and head over everything that happens in the church. And so this is how the church is expressed in its fullness.

He has head over all things to the church which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all. So he is heading up the church. Now you know the sister letter to Ephesians is Colossians and if you look over in Colossians chapter 1, we see a further thought regarding this whole matter of fullness and heading up.

In Colossians we see that this gathering up is not only involved with sinners being saved, being gathered up, not only involved with the church being gathered up under his headship, but this gathering up is larger, it involves the whole of creation.

And Paul by revelation has seen that Christ not only was the creator of the world but now all things are being summed up in him. Look there in Colossians chapter 1 as it talks about his relation to creation as the creator and then as the summation.

Verse 15, he is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created both in the heavens and on earth, visible and invisible, thrones and dominions or rulers or authorities.

All things have been created through him and for him. And he is before all things and in him all things hold together. He is also head of the body of the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, so that he himself will come to have first place in everything.

For it was the father's good pleasure for all the fullness to dwell in him and through him to reconcile all things to himself. And there we get the sense that what the Lord is doing is not only heading up sinners to himself and heading up the church as its head but now heading up creation, reconciling creation, bringing creation as a whole into fullness, taking this natural creation and through the process of his redemption and reconciliation making that which is natural spiritual.

Now this is a tremendous cosmic gathering. This is going way beyond us now as we understand that he is the one who is basically bringing about a heading up of all creation. One day, even as we consider the sun the center of our solar system, we'll all understand that Christ is the center of all creation.

He will be in charge of everything. He'll be the source of everything and he'll be the cause of everything and he'll be the purpose of everything, clearly seen. But Paul has already seen this revealed, a cosmic summing up.

Creation has found its stack pole in Christ and it all makes sense when you look at Christ in the center. But not only that, Colossians goes on to show that there's a microcosmic gathering in our lives, in our individual lives.

So in chapter three, we see in verse four, well, we should start in verse three for you have died and your life is hidden with Christ and God. When Christ who is our life is revealed, then you also will be revealed with him in glory.

When Christ who is our life, that's why we're seeking the things above. We realize we're dead. Our life is now hid with Christ and God. We can't quite see what our life is yet. It's something in process.

But when Christ who is our life is revealed, we will be revealed in glory. He's taking our lives and making his life the sum of our life in this wonderful way. And then he touches again as he's sharing about these things, he talks about this new man.

And by this new man, he's talking about the church as one new man. And so as he's defining it there in chapter three, we see in verse 10 and have put on the new man who's being renewed to a true knowledge according to the image of the one who created him.

That means that the new man, namely the church, is being created in the image of Christ, a renewal in which there is no distinction between Greek and Jews, circumcised and uncircumcised. He's still talking about the new man.

So you see, that's not an individual new man. It's a corporate new man, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave and free man. But Christ is all and in all. One day Christ will fill the church with his glory.

Christ will be all and in all. All the brothers and sisters belong to Christ. And he wants all of the brothers and sisters to be full of Christ. This is the process, the process unto fullness, the process unto the summing up that we notice here in the scriptures.

The Glory of the Sons of God and the Renewal of Creation

We also see that this process in the church is vital to that final fullness of all creation. Again, we know these verses, but let's look in Romans chapter eight. In Romans chapter eight, Paul talks about this tremendous yearning inside and the yearning also in creation for God's work to be done.

But first it has to start among us. And then the whole creation is set free. In verse 18, Paul says, I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed to us.

For the anxious longing of the creation waits eagerly for the revealing of the sons of God. Oh, when God's children are transformed, our sons of glory, creation is waiting for that. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of him who subjected it in hope that the creation itself also will be set free from its slavery to corruption, into the freedom of the glory of the children of God.

And so now we see that there's yet a third expression to express this macro gathering that God is doing through Christ Jesus. There's this term, fullness, especially in regard to the corporate. There's this term, the summing up.

And there's also the term glory. This is also a term that shows God's ultimate intention for all that he's doing in these days, bringing many sons to glory, glorifying these sons, bringing all creation into glory.

And so we see that the fullness is his measure and the summing up is his process and the glory is his essence. It's all a tremendous gathering by the finished work of Christ. When we talk about fullness and we mentioned the first night that Paul actually only uses the term fullness in Ephesians and Colossians.

In his most mature understanding of what God was doing, he sees that the end is fullness, that the maturity is fullness. And so he speaks of fullness. Let's look at just a few scriptures there in Ephesians where Paul mentions the matter of fullness.

Not only does he mention it there at the end of chapter one, where he says in verse 23, the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all. The church is the fullness of him who fills the church.

And then in chapter three, verse 19, and to know the love of Christ, which surpasses knowledge that you may be filled up to all the fullness of God. He's talking to the church gathered as they comprehend the dimensions of Christ.

And then we notice fullness again in chapter four, verse 13. Until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature, which belongs to the fullness of Christ.

The church grows up into the head and grows up into the fullness of Christ, the full stature of Christ, the full character of Christ. This is what Paul sees as the end of things. We might notice in passing in chapter four, verse 10, that Paul also shows us the resource for this fullness.

When he says he meaning Christ who descended is himself also he who ascended far above all the heavens so that he might fill all things. Christ in heaven, the anointed one at the right hand of the father has this infinite capacity to fill.

He loves to fill. He expresses love by filling. And so he's Paul says that he sat up in heaven, that he might fill all things. And then he immediately says, give you some examples. The apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, they were filled by Christ and they bring fullness to the church.

Every time there's somebody has been filled by Christ and expresses that fullness of Christ, other people are filled. And so there's a sense of the church coming into fullness. So the term fullness does have to do with the maturity of Christ, the fullness of the stature of Christ.

This is a goal. But as I said the first night, right from the very start, the church expresses fullness. Think of the church after Pentecost. We all remember Acts 2 .42. I don't think you need to turn there.

It says that the new disciples, the 3000 who'd all been baptized and the 120 who'd been participating in Pentecost, they all gathered together. They gathered together. They continued steadfastly to gather together.

Nobody had to tell him you have to go to Sunday because it didn't have Sunday. They had Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. They continued steadfastly in the apostles teaching and in fellowship, breaking bread and prayers.

Nobody said, no, I don't want to go. Why? Because it was at your house and they gathered in their homes and they gathered out on Solomon's porch. They gathered and they gathered wherever they gathered.

Oh, there was such a sense of fullness. It was a very young church. So what does fullness mean in terms of the young church? You know, we as assemblies, wherever you go to church, if we're lightly, if we're rightly aligned under our Lord and enjoying his living presence, there's a fullness there that's really wonderful.

Gratitude, Service, Love, and the Presence of Christ

I give you an example. I think that there are in the early days in the book of Acts, there were four components, the fullness that you could see even in the young church. The first was they were full of gratitude.

They were taking their food together with joy and singleness of heart and people were being saved just by seeing, wow, how thankful they are. Paul mentions a number of times in his exhortations, give thanks to God.

When we give thanks to God, it gives glory to God. There's a fullness that there's people when people's hearts are full of gratitude. There's a fullness in the church. When the church really worships with real thanksgiving, not that kind of humdrum, let's sing songs about thanksgiving and pretend we're thankful, though I can't think of a reason why.

But that sense that I've newly been saved and my whole life is brand new. Some of you know, some of you don't. I traveled to Russia at least for the last several years and I go out there where people are hearing the gospel for the first time.

And they have a new vocabulary. They're so excited about it. Words like faith, truth, love. They almost sound Brazilian. You know, we have a brother Lucio here. I don't know where he is tonight. But brother Lucio, you know, he's from Brazil and he speaks occasionally back home in Flushing where I fellowship.

And he loves to stretch out words. He says, God, so love the world. I think love is about four seconds because it's like, you know, he just loves this word. He just lays on this word. The Russian just lay on this word.

I've got forgive. That's old to you and I have faith, hope, love. They were full of gratitude. I do believe I can almost sense when there's a fresh working of God in any assembly because there's a lot of thanksgiving, just a lot of thankfulness.

Of course, there's more than that. How can the church be the fullness of Christ? Doesn't Christ have everything already? He doesn't have to ask the car for the church for a Toyota. He has a Honda already where everybody's in one accord.

Forget it. OK, but listen, isn't the Lord already full? How can we be the fullness of the Lord? Here's how we today, not even counting the fact when we're there at the end of the summing of all things with the Spirit saying, come, but even today, how can we be fullness?

Here goes his first gratitude. Second of all, just being servants of the Lord Jesus, being his messenger, going out, telling the gospel, being the one who brings love and compassion and mercy or those who are just servants of his.

Oh, that brings fullness. There's nothing more wonderful than a master who's got servants running around, running around, doing whatever he wants. And of course, it goes deeper than that. What is it that really makes it fullness?

That first love, that love. Thirdly, that love that knows no price, knows no cost. Like the love a person has before they get married. What can I do for you, honey? Can I get you something? And then you get married, you come to the cafeteria, the husband goes on one end, the wife goes to the other.

I see a lot of love even here at the cafeteria. Honey, can I get you something? All this kind of stuff. But you know what? It's a glory to Christ and how the Father loves it. When his children just have first love, whatever you want, how can we fulfill your desire?

Isn't that a great question? How can I fulfill your heart today, Lord Jesus? There's just fullness in that love, fullness in that kind of earnest serving and there's fullness in gratitude. And of course, the fourth thing, which is kind of like the kickback.

Even in the early church, what was the church full of? The presence of Christ. People came into the church, they just said, wow, what's going on here? Some people were afraid to join themselves with the brethren.

There was such a presence of Christ there. It was all by grace. But it's so wonderful when you see this kind of fullness there. So Paul uses this word fullness in Ephesians and Colossians and we find it nowhere else.

Oh, except where? Gospel of John, full of grace and truth and of his fullness. We have all received John chapter one, verse 16, grace upon grace. You see, John was written years after Paul and John, which I think is, to my mind, one of the most Gentile gospels.

It's just so Gentile. It's universal. You know what I mean? It's for anybody. They love that gospel anywhere. It's just so Gentile. John is trying to recover. John is trying to bring back the very things our brother Stephen has been sharing in these days.

John was faced at the end of his life with a church that was losing the fullness and the reality, and they were going back to the things on the outside. And so John presented a gospel that said, look at the things as signs and look through those things to the I am, because that's your fullness.

John was trying to draw them back. And so it was John who brings us again years later to this matter of fullness, full and of his fullness. We have all received and grace upon grace. Now, our brother shared a wonderful section in his message this morning on the grace of God.

It is wonderful. It is undeserved. It is freely given. Paul says it's lavished upon us. And certainly in those early days, grace is just initiated sovereignly by God. He pours it out on us even unexpectedly.

We talked about this mega gathering from 1972, even to this day. Let me just ask you, somebody said they'd like to know how many of you have been gathered in since 1970. You've come to the Lord since 1970.

Well, now there we are. You're part of that gathering process. You've been gathered in by his grace. Praise God. Praise God. And by his grace, you've been blessed by his grace. You're enjoying his life.

Fifty million people this year gathered into grace, gathered into the grace room for the big buffet. In that grace room is a wonderful buffet. There's forgiveness. There's love. There's peace with God.

If you have needs, you can pray and they'll be answered. You know what it's like in that grace room. Paul mentions in Romans chapter five, this a little passage that caught my heart years ago, and I just love it for its simplicity.

In Romans chapter five, it begins, therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand and we exalt in the hope of the glory of God.

And not only this, we also exalt in tribulations, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance and perseverance, proven character and proven character. Hope and hope does not disappoint because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the Holy Spirit who was given to us.

Now, you notice right there, it says in verse two, we, by faith, have been brought in through the door of faith into this grace in which we now stand. We stand in the grace of God. I'm going to call that the grace room.

All of these provisions freely given to us in Christ, even, and this is so important for many of the Russians, just a reason to live as well as love and forgiveness and hope and deliverance and healing.

It's all there in the grace room, all absolutely free. The provisions of the Holy Spirit, all absolutely free. It's just a gift to give. Go to the buffet. What do you want? But of course, you know, the Lord wants to bring us from grace to glory.

From Grace to Glory Through Tribulation

We can stand in that grace room. And sometimes I think some Christians have stood in that buffet an awfully long time. But God has utter confidence in his ability to get us to glory because he's got his trump card just waiting for you unexpectedly.

There you and I are in the grace room. I think I need a little forgiveness today. I'm standing around in the grace room. I think I need a little love. Couple of saints come over. Give me a hug. Hug. Hug.

This is grace room is so wonderful. But then one day I look through the window of hope. And I see the glory room. Now, I'm not there yet, but you see, I'm standing in the grace room, but I also rejoice in the glory of God.

I look through the window by the word of God. It's revealed to me the glory. And there's something about the glory room. It's no longer buffet. It's things of custom made. You know, it isn't the buffet.

Now you've seen through the window the chef and the new and deeper hunger starts to rise in your heart. You know, I go probably about once a year. I go up to Toronto. Now, one thing they do in Toronto that's hard to find a match is take you to the best places to eat food.

And I asked my host one time, how come you always seem to know where the best restaurant is for the best food? Now, of course, you know, I'm some kind of food critic. What do I know? I eat anything. But anyway, I said, how do you always know where to bet?

Because he takes us different places, different years. You know what he told me? It's always Chinese food, by the way. He says, I follow the chef. Now, he's learned a couple of the great chefs there in Toronto, and they have great Chinese chefs in Toronto.

And these guys get more money by the next restaurant. They go to the next restaurant. He just follows the chef. Oh, it's so wonderful to be in the grace room with my 50 million brothers and sisters enjoying all these things for free.

But boy, when I when you look through the window into the glory room, and of course, it's Christ that you see. It's just something a hunger comes inside you. This is God's absolute confidence that you and I will be captured if we see Jesus revealed.

And it's almost like the song takes on a second verse, you know, the the salvation song, turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in his wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim. It's almost like there's a second verse.

And even the things of grace seems strangely dim in the light of his glory and grace. We love the grace of God. It's always free and ready for us. But we've seen the glory room. Have you been gathered to the glory room?

Have you looked through that window and seen this Christ? I wasn't saved till I was 20. So I got started late. For 10 years, I was so happy serving in the church, which we called the hospital for sinners, not the hotel for saints.

I heard that from some guy and I like the motto. So I'd always say, Well, that church is just a hospital for sinners, not a hotel for saints. And we'd preach the gospel and try to gather people in, you know, to the church, broken people, needy people.

This is a hospital for sinners. I was happy for 10 years in the church as a hospital for sinners. Until one day, I saw the most beautiful Christ I'd ever seen. And it was a corporate Christ, the church.

I didn't know that church was Christ. I thought it was a hospital for sinners. I thought it was a gathering place. I didn't know until I looked through that window that day and saw the most beautiful Christ I'd ever seen.

It wasn't I saw his head and then I saw this hospital body. No, I saw Christ from head to foot. Christ is the church. I'd even heard that, but I had to see it. And when I saw it, I left the hospital because I found home.

But that church is a glorious church without spot and wrinkle. You know, back in that hospital for sinners thing, nobody has to really get serious about sanctification. Everybody can just have sloppy agape.

You didn't have to deal with the flesh. You know, you just held down the flesh you wanted to and you use the flesh you wanted to. It's just a hospital for sinners. There's no big standard. You just have to be saved.

And the church I was in had to be saved and baptized. That's it. Now, suddenly I see a church. It's my home. It's a glorious place without spot or wrinkle. And I not only saw that that was my home, but that's when I learned how you get from the grace room to the glory room.

Through the hallway of tribulation. And I have to tell you, I wouldn't have received this message of the cross, which, by the way, this was back in those days, as I was telling you the first night I was listening to Brother Stephen.

They'd always talk about the cross, how you find the cross in numbers or judges or Samuel or Ruth. I don't know. I didn't know at that time. Now I have a clue. The cross. I knew there was something. But listen, if you just want to be a hospital for sinners, just loosey goosey going nowhere, growing, dividing, fighting, then be it.

But I'm betting you've already seen the glorious church. Now, two things happen when you see the glorious Christ. You're caught. You are caught. Don't say catch me, Lord. You've been caught. You're caught by glory.

And the Lord begins to take you on a process to make you fit for the glory room. I mean, that's what it's all about. It continues all by grace. By grace, you've been saved and by grace, you continue on.

But it's grace in the hallway of tribulation. Have you been gathered to the glorious Christ? Have you seen Christ? Not just the Christ, the man who died on the cross. If you've seen the Christ of glory, whether you're at the beginning stage of your life, like Paul on the road to Damascus, when he saw the Christ of glory, it changed his life and captured it.