Indications that God is For Us - Part 2

Romans chapter 8, for our time of study and the word this morning, Romans. Chapter 8, we're doing a verse by verse study through Romans 567 and 8. A journey to the heart of the gospel and as we continue in our Series through this section of the book of Romans. We come this morning to Romans chapter 8, verse 28, and my goal this morning is to get all the way through verse 29, by the time we're, we're done.

And the title of the message this morning is Indications that God is for us, Part 2. Indications that God is for us, Part two. What we find in the passage this morning, It's not so much simply indications of the fact that God is for us. But we also observe something of the degree to which God is for us.

It turns out, God is really for us. He is so for us, who know Jesus, that he does the things that are described. And outlined in verses 28, 29, and 30. And we're going to get to unpack some of these things this morning.

Let me read the text like we did last week, and then, and then we'll begin to break it down. Beginning in verse 28, Paul says, and we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose. For those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to become conformed to the image of his son, that he would be the firstborn among many brethren. And these whom he predestined, he also called.

And these whom he called, he also justified. And these whom he justified, he also glorified. What then shall we say to these things? So Paul uses the expression these things to refer back to everything that he has said in verses 28, 29, and 30, and then he re-expresses these things in a succinct way with the words God is for us.

Imagine a summarizing machine and you input into that machine. All of the words of verse 28, 29, and 30, and you give it a command to summarize the contents of those verses. What would come out of that machine are the words God is for us. He's really for us.

That's what's being communicated in these verses. And as we talked about last week, The truth that God is for us. I, I can't think of many truths that are more fundamental and more important for us to lay hold of as believers than this truth. As a believer in Christ, if you and the core of your being are rock solid in your certainty that God is for you, good days and bad days and good times and in times of trial, and hardship and days of victory and days of defeat, if you are certain in the core of your being that God is for you, you have slain 1000 giants in one fell swoop.

If you are not certain. that God is for you in Christ, then everything else begins to disassemble. You begin to lose your grasp of almost every other thing that you are called to believe and to do, if you're not sure as a believer in Jesus that God is for you. But when we as believers are certain that God is for us, With an absolute certainty, we find there in the wellspring of holiness and of love for God.

We also find the courage that we need to brace us for whatever it is we find ourselves experiencing, or lying ahead of us. In fact, let me share this with you. you guys know how like in Matthew's Gospel, I believe Matthew 26, Jesus is celebrating, the Lord's Supper for the first time with his disciples. And it says after the supper, it says they sang a hymn in the New American Standard.

But literally that reads that they did hymn singing. It'd be easy to misread that and think they must have sang one hymn. That's not what the text is saying. It just meant they did hymn singing.

And virtually every commentator that you will read will tell you that what they would have sang on that occasion would have at the very least been Psalm 118. Many would tell you that like what the Jews would sing after the Passover, which that was, was Psalm 115, 116, 117, and 118. And then some would say it was just Psalm 118, but everyone's agreed that they at least sang Psalm 118. And I would encourage you to do this.

We did this as a care group a few weeks ago. read through Psalm 118, 1 of these days, and read it from the standpoint of imagining Jesus singing or chanting those words in a prayer to God as he is about to go into the chasm of darkness and suffering that lay before him. Put those words on Jesus' lips because he prayed those words. He sang those words as he faced the darkness and the suffering ahead of him and listen to just a few of those words that Jesus would have prayed or sang on that occasion.

In Psalm 1186, Jesus would have said, the Lord is for me, Jehovah is for me. I will not fear what can man do to me? Now man is about to do a lot to Jesus. And yet he comforts himself with this certainty that Jehovah is for me.

And then in the next verse, the Lord Jehovah is for me. We find these words on the lips of Jesus, as he looked ahead in the coming hours to the agony of Gethsemane, to his unjust arrest, and to the onslaught of punches and slaps and being spat upon and the crown of thorns being crushed into his brow and being lashed again and again with a cat of nine tails. mockery and the ridicule and the nails carrying the cross and then being nailed to the cross and crucified and ultimately dying as he faces all of that, he is singing Jehovah is for me.

I will not fear.

What can man do to me? Jehovah is for me. I would submit to you that if this is good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for you. If Jesus rallied around this theological reality to brace him and encourage him for the suffering ahead, then I think it would minister to us as well.

Let us do as Jesus did, and let us embrace this truth that God is for us in Christ. There are 4 indications, this is what we'll do today, that God is for us who are His people. Those of us that love God, those of us that are called according to His purpose, 4 indications that we'll look at that God is for us. Now, there's a total of 7, as we said last week, and you might look at the screen and go, wait a minute, there were 4 indications last week.

this seems like the same sermon. Well, it is, and we're just going to quickly look at the first two by way of review. And then we got to the 3rd 1 last week, but there's a lot more to say about that 3rd 1. And then we'll get into the 4th 1, and hopefully wrap up the 3rd and the 4th 1 this morning and then be able to build on that in the coming weeks.

4 indications that God is for us who are his people. If you want to be certain, That God is for you, then you want to study verses 28, 29, and 30, savor these truths, understand them. Because if you understand these verses and believe them, you will never be in any doubt as to whether God is for you. Indication number 1, that God is for us, is that God causes all things to work together for our good.

He says in verse 28, and we know that God causes all things, not just some things, but all things to work together for good to those who love God, and to those who are called according to His purpose. That means for us as believers in every circumstance, God takes every circumstance. And he works them together to do good unto us and to do good through us that serves his purposes. There is no circumstance that you will ever face as a believer in which God is not fully active, working for your good.

No circumstance. That's exactly why Paul in 1 Thessalonians 5 could say to us, in everything, be continuously giving thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. Paul is not saying, Hey, in everything give thanks because it's the spiritual thing to do. No, there's a reality that underlies that command.

God tells us in everything, give thanks, because in everything, God is doing something that we can thank him for, right? God is always active. We saw last week that he's not just doing something that we can thank him for. God is always doing a million things.

RC Sproul says God does Not move a single molecule in the universe without intending in the process to do a million things. God is a very infinitely purposeful God, and there is no circumstance that we face in which He is not manifesting His genius of purpose. Working for our good, and working good through us for the benefit of others. There is a second indication that God is for us, and that is that God intentionally knew us long before we knew Him.

God intentionally knew us long before we knew him. Paul says, for those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son. We talked a lot last week about God for knowing us. Essentially, to say that God foreknew us means that God determined in advance to know us in a relational way.

God made a decision before the foundation of the world. to enter into a loving relationship with us, and to bring us into a loving relationship with Him. This happened before the world was created, which means that if you're a believer in Christ, God has been loving you for thousands of years. God has been for you, for thousands of years, even before the world was created.

And all of human history, God has been working through human history. in part to achieve his purposes. that were ordained when he made the decision to enter into a loving relationship with you in Christ, and then God even bringing you into existence, and then working in your life and bringing circumstances and people into your life, and His Spirit doing an awakening work in your heart, bringing conviction over sin, and directing your thoughts in such a way to where the day came, that you came to Jesus, and you freely chose him.

But even your free choice of Christ was something that was nurtured and grew out of the rich matrix of God's for knowing of you.

Just like Jesus said to his disciples, And John 15, you didn't choose me. I chose you He's not denying that they chose him. He's just saying, even your choice of me. is something that only occurred because I first chose you.

Your choice, your free choice of me emerged out of my foreknowing of you, my choice of you. I can't take any credit for the fact that I chose Christ. that's not something of my doing. I was spiritually dead in my trespasses and sins.

I was a dead person is unable to respond. The spirit had to quicken me, and if I could take any credit for the fact that I chose Christ, if we could take any credit for that, as if it's somehow our doing, then we could spend eternity bragging about that one thing we did. I chose Christ. I was smart enough to choose Him.

Wise enough to choose him. No, even our free choice of him, we realized was something that grew and was nurtured in the rich matrix of God's deliberate foreknowing of us. God did not wait until we cleaned up our act before he decided to enter into a relationship with us. He decided to love us before we were lovely, before we were lovable.

As Martin Luther says, true love does not choose to love only that which is lovely or lovable. True love sets its love upon the unlovely and makes it lovely. And that's what God has done. And for knowing us and then executing that foreknowledge throughout human history and then in our, our lives and in saving us as he has.

There's a third indication that God is for us, that we observe in verse 29, and that is that God predestined us to be transformed into Christ's image. God predestined us to be transformed into Christ's image. He says in verse 29, for those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to become conformed to the image of the Son. This word predestined means to mark out, to determine In advance.

So, so God made a decision. He predetermined that something would happen to us. And that is that we would be conformed to the image of His Son, Jesus. Now the English word conformed, unfortunately, can sometimes be somewhat of a weak word.

It can have the idea of like conforming on the outside, even though there's no N-word change. Just know that the word Paul uses here is a deeper word than our English word conform, can handle or fully express. Inside of this Greek word is, is where we get our English expression to morph. Or to change.

God predestined to morph us into the image of His Son, to cause a radical transformation from the inside out, morphing us into the very image of His Son. And guys, when God predestined something, it happens. He predestined that his son would die on the cross so that we would be saved. And it happened.

And God has predestined that you will look like Jesus. If you're a believer in Christ, if you love God, you're called according to His purpose. If you have brought your bankrupt self to Jesus and said, I need a savior, and you are the only savior for me. God has saved you, and predestined you to look like Jesus.

You can be encouraged in that. You're going to look like Jesus. One day You may look at yourself now and say, I have so far to go. I look anything, but like Jesus, the way that I want to.

And yeah, I see God working in my life, but I stumble along, stumbling in so many ways. I have so far to go. Listen, just receive the encouragement. God has predestined that you will one day morph into the image of Jesus.

You're going to look just like him. Now, that means that obviously you think of Christ in His heavenly glory, still in his incarnate physical state with a glorified body. If we could see Him in His heavenly glory, we can honestly say, I'm going to look like him one day. I will be glorified.

His very glory will attach itself to my person, and I will undergo a transformation in glory, and I will look like Him. John speaks of this day in 1 John 3:2, when he says that when Christ appears, we will be like him, because we will see him as he is. So we look forward to that day of ultimate and final radical transformation. However, and this ought to be an encouragement to us, we're not waiting for that day to experience the morphing that Paul is talking about.

There are levels of morphing that are happening now as God is transforming us now day by day into the image. Christ. Paul speaks of this phenomenon in 2 Corinthians 3:18, when he says, basically, one of the things that I've noticed in my life and in the life of my colleagues is that as we are continually staring as in a mirror at the glory of the Lord, we are undergoing a metamorphosis into the same image from one level of glory to another. As we stare at his glory, we're being transformed into his image.

That's not something Paul simply hoped for. It was something that was already beginning to happen. He was undergoing transformation. At the present time.

And so the encouragement, guys, is as you open your Bibles and you read through the Gospel accounts and you, you begin to learn about Jesus. You realize he is your savior. And because he lived a perfect life and died the death, you deserve to die, that he can be your savior and you relish that. But also as you read through the gospel accounts, and you get to know Jesus, and you observe him in his holiness, you observe his radical love for his Father with all of his heart, soul, strength, and might.

You observe how perfectly and fully. Without flaw, he loved his fellow men when he was on earth, loving them perfectly, taking his power and putting it in service to the needs of mankind. You observe his radical obedience to his father, even to the point of becoming obedient unto death. You observe how he was full of truthfulness, and he never spoke.

A lie. You observe his intimate relationship with the Father, you observe his prayer life, and you're envious. It's like, man, what intimacy and relationship is there between Jesus and the Father? You observe his selfless serving in the Gospel accounts, which I just marvel at.

You think of Jesus going to Jerusalem, setting his face like a flint toward Jerusalem, and he's already feeling this heaviness on his way to the city, knowing what awaits him there. And he keeps warning the disciples, but they don't hear him. And as he gets closer to Jerusalem and the heaviness increases, the cluelessness of the disciples to his heaviness becomes more and more evident. As Jesus is with them in a room and they had celebrated communion at some point in connection with that, Jesus feeling troubled in his spirit.

Oppressed by what awaits him. is listening to the disciples, and they're arguing over which of them is the greatest in the kingdom of God. If anyone had a right to just say, just get out of this room, I need to be alone. Don't you guys know what I'm going through?

If anyone had a right to self-pity, he did. He was the most least, the least misunderstood person in that room with all the heaviness he felt. And yet what did he do? He girded himself with a towel, and he washed the feet of these clueless disciples, and he taught them.

You observe how full of grace and forgiveness he was. And here's the deal, guys, here's the encouragement. You read and observe all of the character and the beauty of Jesus in the gospel accounts. And what you're doing is you're beholding the picture of what you're going to look like one day.

This is your after picture. Christ is unique. We will never be him. But we are promised that we will be like him.

God will morph us. He will change us into His image. And we can read of his character displayed in the Gospels and say, I'm going to be like that one day. What great encouragement.

For us. God will make us like Jesus. That is his agenda. This is something though that we do well to ponder.

You need to realize that when God entered into a relationship with you, he had your transformation. On his agenda, God entered into a relationship with you in part so that he could change you. Are you OK with that? God is out to change you.

God looked upon you when he entered into a relationship with you and said, I need to change this person radically. one pastor, I've heard this from several, I don't know who said this originally, but I've often heard it said that God loves you just the way you are, but he loves you so much that he won't let you stay that way. You can come to Jesus like the tax collector did with all your sin mess and repentance and cry out to Him for mercy. God will take you just as you are, but he loves you so much that he absolutely refuses to let you stay.

That way There are people in our culture today that They're not really into changing. They don't want to change. They don't want a religion that forces them to change. But I would submit that if you really love Jesus, you're going to want to look like him.

And you will be excited about the fact that God is out to change and transform you. But there are many people today who what they want in a religion is they want a religion that's compatible with them, and what that means is a religion. That does not force them to change. Jodie Foster, the great theologian from Hollywood, said for me to accept a religion, it must embrace me and who I am without putting preconditions on what makes me whole.

So if you're going to come to me, she says, offering your religion for me to embrace, what I need is a religion that embraces me and who I am, and does not put any conditions on what makes me whole. I need a religion that does not tell me that I'm not whole. And then tells me what I need to do to get fixed or to become whole. So any religion like Christianity is automatically rejected.

Because in the Christian faith, we're brought into relationship with a God who tells us the sobering truth about ourselves, that we are sinners against God, and we are complicit actually in the death of His Son. That we need forgiveness, that we are not whole. In fact, we are dead, and that Jesus is the only giver of life. And he can make us whole.

This is not only evident in, the religions that people select for themselves, but even in relationships. What people are looking for in relationships is they want relationships with people who aren't going to make them change. In fact, Adam Sternberg, who wrote an article for The New York Times Magazine in March of last year. The article was entitled A Brutally Candid Oral History of Breaking Up.

And in the article, he talks about what's happening in marriages nowadays and the mindset that people come into their marriage relationship. With, and he cites some survey results from the National Marriage Project in which men were asked the question, what are the most important things you look for in a potential mate? And the second most popular answer was they looked for physical attractiveness or sexual chemistry. We're not so much surprised at that.

But the number one answer that these men gave as to what they were looking for and what was most important to them in a potential mate was compatibility. Now, that's not a bad word. There's a lot to commend that word, but what the, the people who put the survey together said is from listening to the men, here's what they meant by compatibility. And that is a willingness to take them as they are and not change them.

That's what became evident. In fact, one of the respondents to the survey said, if you are truly compatible, then you don't have to change. Well, isn't that convenient? And so you have men that are looking for someone that will accept them as they are, and not at all make them change in their lifestyle or in their character.

If they can find someone like that, good luck finding someone like. that if they can find someone like that, that's the most important thing to them. I am who I am, and I want to stay that way. And I'm looking for a woman who will accept me for who I am.

And I won't have to change at all. That's the mentality that is prevalent in our culture, not only as people select a religious faith, but also selecting a marriage partner. So it takes courage, actually, to believe in Jesus, a God wrought courage of coming to God and hearing the sobering truth about yourself, and of God announcing to you, here's my agenda. And that is to change you, to morph you.

And here's what you're going to look like, you're going to look like my son, Jesus, when I'm done. And we look at Jesus, whom we love, and we say, I do want to look like that. Have at it, Father, and change me to become like this one who is so beautiful, and so attractive to me. The Christian life is all about transformation in Romans 12:2.

That's why Paul gives us the command, be continuously being transformed. That is to be the template of your Christian experience. You say, well, Pastor Milton, I've known the Lord for 10 whole years, and I've been transformed a lot. What do I do now?

Be continuously being transformed. You say, well, I, I've known the Lord for 50 years, and I have changed so much over those 50 years. What do I do now? Be continuously being transformed.

That is your agenda. The Christian life is a lifestyle of ongoing constant transformation from the inside out. And that is so because in saving you, when God foreknew you and determined to bring you into saving, loving relationship with himself, he also rendered a decision that in the context of that loving relationship, he was going to morph you into the image of Jesus Christ. That is your destiny.

And you will look like Jesus one day. Let me also encourage you. With this, to not only take this truth, and see yourself in the light of this truth, but when you look at your brothers and sisters, and your husband or your wife, Look at your brothers and sisters in the context of this truth. Don't just look at them for who they are now.

Don't just see them for who they are now, see them. For who God is making them to be. See them for who they will be when God is finished with them. One day, they're going to fully look like Jesus, and they're going to blow you away.

And you're going to look back over your journey together with them and you're going to be so blessed at the fact that you got to participate in the process of God morphing them into the image of Christ. See others in this light. It is easy to, I talked to believers who when they think about or look at another believer, they see that person for who they were and what they did 10 years ago. And they've got a record of wrongs from the past, and that's what they rehearse, that's what they review.

They see that person perpetually for who they were and what they did 10 years ago, or they may see that person for who they are today with all of their failings. And not that we turned a blind eye to the reality that confronts us in the lives of our brothers and sisters, but we do well in addition to seeing things truly, to see them for who they're going to become. They are predestined, these brothers and sisters around you, they're predestined. To be conformed to the image of Christ.

See them that way, and, and speak these kinds of words to them. Like, like the way Paul spoke to the Philippians, he says, I am confident of this very thing that he who began a good work in you will perfect it until the day of Christ Jesus. When I look at you, Philippians, I don't just see you for who you used to be and who you are now. I, I, I also see who you're going to be in the day of Christ Jesus.

And I just thought I would share that with you, that God who has started a good work in you, of transforming you and of saving you is going to continue that work until the day of Christ Jesus, when you are fully like him. Probably the most messed up church that Paul ever wrote to was the Corinthian church, right? And so if there was ever a church where Paul had to practice this discipline of seeing them in the light of who they would become, it was the Corinthians. And so we're not surprised in 1 Corinthians 1:8.

To hear Paul saying to them, the Lord Jesus, will confirm you in the end, blameless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. As I look at you Corinthians right now, I Don't just see you for who you are. I see you for who you will be. There is a day coming when you will be blameless.

The day of Christ Jesus. But you're not blameless now. And I would like to say some things to you, whereby I am letting God use me as an instrument of helping you to go further in your journey towards this ultimate destination. And I'm gonna bust you up for some things.

And I'm going to confront you about some things, but I'm doing so as a participant in this journey towards your ultimate morphing into the image of Christ. Man, if we ministered to one another from this standpoint, if we looked at our spouses in the context of marriage from this standpoint, what a difference it would make. Listen to what Timothy Keller says. He, he's talking about what it means to fall in love from a Christian point of view.

We were going through this a few weeks ago in our man forum on Tuesday mornings. And I love, I love the way he says this here, and it captures the very essence of what we're talking about. He says within the Christian vision for marriage, here's what it means to fall in love. It is to look at another person and get a glimpse of the person God is creating.

And to say, I see who God is making you, and it excites me. I want to be part of that. I want to partner with you and God and the journey you are taking to his throne. And when we get there, I will look at your magnificence and say, I always knew you could be like this.

I got glimpses of it on earth. But now look at you. Imagine this perspective in marriage. Keller goes on to say, you want a perfect spouse?

Your Christian spouse is destined for perfection. Stick with the one you have, that God is making into a perfect man or woman, who will be just like Christ. And when you see your spouse and you see the flaws in your husband or wife, those flaws are temporary. Anything good in your spouse that is of God, that's permanent.

The flaws are going to go at some point in your spouse's journey toward Christ likeness. And as we speak to one another, and even we, we deal with sin issues in each other's lives as brothers and sisters and as husbands and wives, we have our eyes wide open. And we are aware of the past and the present, but we also have a keen eye towards this predestined future. That awaits us, our brothers and sisters in Jesus, and our husbands and wives in Christ.

So see yourself in this context and see. Others who know Jesus in this context as well. God is for us, guys. He is so for us.

He has predestined us to be like the most beautiful person in the universe. Jesus Christ, there's a 4th indication that God is for us. And that is that God predestined us into Christ exalting community. God predestined us into Christ exalting community.

Let me read this to you. For those whom he foreknew, he also predestined to become conformed to the image of His Son, so that he would be the firstborn among many brethren. just to, to start with this. Basically, the very least you can draw from this is that God is predestined to make us brothers and sisters of Jesus.

He is predestined for us to be brothers and sisters of Jesus. This is an amazing reality. One writer says the New Testament normally refers to Christians as believers, disciples, slaves, apostles, sheep, etc. But in this rare passage, they are called brothers and peers of Christ.

As the firstborn among many brothers, Christ desires to share his glory with believers in a sibling. Relationship. That's amazing. The human race, because of our sins against God, deserves to be obliterated.

And yet By the time the dust settles at the end of the gospel accounts, We have A man in the Trinity. Seated at the right hand of God. We're represented there. And we get the astounding privilege not only has God saved us from his wrath, But God has made us brothers of Jesus.

In Hebrews 2:11, we observe. That Jesus is not ashamed to call us brethren. We're not just brothers of Jesus. It'd be one thing to be a brother of Jesus, and he says to us, what, you're my brother, but don't tell anybody.

And I'm not going to tell anybody. I would be, what, that's fine. Thank you for letting me be your brother. That's privilege enough, even if no one knows.

But Jesus says, not only Are you my brothers and sisters, but I, I will call you that. I'm not ashamed to tell all that you are my brothers and my sisters. The one who sits at the right hand of God. With all authority on heaven, in heaven and on earth.

who one day is going to come again, and he's going to smite the nations, and he's going to set up his kingdom on earth. He's going to rule the nations with a rod of iron. King Jesus, the sovereign King of the universe, at the right hand of God. That's my big brother.

That's your brother, and he's not ashamed to call us. His brethren. And in being brothers of Jesus, what that means is we get to relate to Jesus. With profound gratitude and humility.

As our big brother, but it also means that we get to relate to his father on the same terms that he does. And read Ephesians one as we're seated with Christ in the heavenlies and we are accepted in the beloved, we get to relate to his Father on the same terms that he does. The salvation that God has given to us is utterly astounding. We could never dream up anything this amazing.

If God said, have at it, just dream up, however great you want salvation to be, we would have never come up with anything this magnificent. Let me point this out in closing. Let me just point out a grammatical connection here that I think is worth pondering in verse 29, Paul says, for those whom God foreknew, he also predestined to become conformed to the image of his Son, so that You want to mark the word so that or in order that or with the result, the intended result being that he would be the firstborn among many brethren.

this not only indicates that we are predestined into the community with one another and with Christ as our big brother, but typically in the New Testament, when you see a reference to the firstborn in a context like this, it has the idea of preeminence.

And so filling that idea in here, so that he would be the preeminent one among many brethren. OK, the famous one, the preeminent one. And so note the connection. We are conformed to the image of a son, God predestines that not as an end in itself, but in order to accomplish something of even greater importance, and that is the preeminence of Jesus.

Our conformity to the image of Christ has something to do with his preeminence being displayed. As we're conformed to the image of a son so that he would be the preeminent one. Our conformity to Christ serves his preeminence. It furthers the display of his preeminence.

It makes his preeminence more manifest. The more we are conformed to the image of Christ. We are all as a community in different places on our journey towards conformity to Christ. God is working in all of our lives, and there are, there are displays of conformity increasingly in our lives as we are becoming more and more like Him, the more like Him, with each layer of increasing conformity to Christ, Christ's preeminence is served.

And furthered and made more visible and manifest. Guys, the single best way that we can serve this wicked generation that we find ourselves in today is to serve the preeminence of Christ. Anything we can do to make his preeminence more visible and manifest, that's what we need to do. That's the best thing we can do for our culture.

Today, and the single best way that we can serve his preeminence and make his preeminence more manifest, is to allow God to make us more like Him. To conform us more to the image. Of Christ. Silly example, Eli Manning won the Super Bowl last week.

I'm sure there are many that bought, I don't even know what number or jersey he wears, I'm sure there are many that bought jerseys, that have his number. on it, and with each person that purchases a jersey and wears a jersey with Manning's name and number on it, with each person who does that, his fame and preeminence grows proportionately. OK. With each believer in Jesus, who allows God increasingly to conform him or her more and more to the image of Christ to where his very image and beauty is being displayed.

Christ's preeminence becomes more manifest and is served by us, allowing God to make us more like Him. May God give us the grace to cooperate with God's agenda of conforming us to the image of Christ. And being a delighted part of that journey in the lives of our brothers and sisters in the Lord. Let's pray together.

God, you are so for us. We deserve for you to be against us, and yet you are, you're not just Passively for us, you are radically for us. And we see the indications of that here, Lord, You work everything for good. You knew us long before we knew you.

You predetermined to bring us into loving relationship with yourself. You are so for us that you are day by day, changing us radically to become more and more like Jesus, the most beautiful person in the universe. And you're actually using us as your instruments to serve the preeminence of Christ and to make his preeminence more manifest. We get to be a part of something larger than ourselves.

It turns out, Lord, that your forness towards us is ultimately a demonstration of how for Your Son you are. And for the spread of His glory and fame. And we are delighted, Lord, to be caught up in a purpose that is infinitely greater than ourselves. It is not about us.

It's all about Jesus. We get to be a part of this cosmic, eternally significant enterprise of you making the preeminence of your Son manifest in every corner of this world. We are blessed indeed. Give us eyes to see these things and a heart willing to embrace them and to live accordingly.

Thank you, Lord, for the opportunity to give of our offerings to you. Here in the next moment or two, we ask that you receive these funds and do much with them for the glory of the Savior Jesus Christ. We give ourselves to you also. In Christ's name, and all God's people said,