A couple of years ago, my daughter, Amy, was in high school at Spring Valley High School around Columbia, and she was part of the marching band and invited me to help her at Williams-Brice Stadium, where the Gamecocks play to help her and the concession stand there. USC was playing a football game, and so I helped her there. And when they sold out all the merchandise just before halftime, We were free to go and watch the game. And though I enjoy college football, I was fairly new to the area and hadn't gotten into it very much. And they said I could go find a seat wherever there was an empty seat. And I walked out from the concession stand into the auditorium or the arena, the stadium there. I couldn't believe it. Eighty thousand grieving fans. It was USC and Clemson. Biggest game of the year. And I remember trying to find a seat very quickly. It turned out that I sat down in one of the areas close to an entrance or an exit and had to move there because when the football players came running out onto the field for the second half, I was exactly situated in a place that all the drunk fans could lean over and smack the football players and say, go get them, yeah. And they were beating me to death. And I don't mind being a martyr for the sake of the gospel, but that was not the way that I would have chosen to die. And so then I found a seat, happened to be on the fifty-yard line, where someone had something better to do than attend that football game. So today, I know there are mixed emotions in this congregation. Some of you grieving desperately. Some of you rejoicing. And the Bible says that we should rejoice against those who grieve. No, it doesn't say that. We put those who weep for a pretty good football game yesterday. depending on how you look at it. And that's not why I've come. I'm not really come to talk about football. And some did not care. So my message this morning is on apathy and the poison of apathy. I'm just kidding. May I invite you to turn to First John chapter three. First John chapter three, I'm continuing this series that is entitled, How Does a Believer Grow? How does a believer grow? We've been looking at the book of First John for a few months, and this morning we launch into First John chapter three, and notice there that we have a fantastic future waiting for us. If we know the Lord Jesus Christ as Savior, we have a fantastic future, which is the theme, I would suggest, of First John chapter three. Let me begin reading our section there, which will be chapter three, verses one through six. But I need to back up to the last few verses of chapter two. So first John chapter two, beginning at verse twenty eight. First John two, twenty eight. And now, dear children, continue in him so that when he appears, we may be confident and unashamed before him at his coming. If you know that he is righteous, You know that everyone who does what is right has been born of Him. How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God. And that is what we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know Him. Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when He appears, we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. Everyone who has this hope in Him purifies Himself just as He is pure. Everyone who sins breaks the law. In fact, sin is lawlessness. But you know that He appeared so that He might take away our sin. And in Him is no sin. No one who lives in Him keeps on sinning. No one who continues to sin has either seen Him or known Him. Let's pray together, shall we? Father, we thank you this morning for your love and for your grace to us. We are so thankful for the Lord Jesus Christ. We're thankful that we face a fantastic future because of what Jesus Christ has done for us. Lord, enthuse our hearts with the truth of your word that we know the end of the story and Jesus Christ wins. Encourage us, Father, that as we live day by day in this world, that we might invest our lives in seeking to make a difference for that other world. Thank you for the gospel. Thank you for your people. Thank you for the freedom we have in this country to open our Bible and to ponder some of the thoughts of God. Encourage us this morning as we do exactly that. And Lord, would you remind us, as we've often said, of what someone else proclaimed long ago that the measure of a good sermon is not your people going away saying, my, that was a lovely sermon. but rather your people going away saying, I'm going to do something about what I've heard this morning. Lord, may that be the prayer of listener and speaker alike. We pray in Jesus' name, amen. If you've got one of those little fill-in outlines, and maybe they're are few left over. I didn't ask anybody ahead of time, but some of them have purple ones and some of them have blue ones. They're the same thing, but we're kind of using that in our series to fill in some spots here. We're looking at the first major issue considered in First John chapter three, and it's what I call the purifying power of prophecy. The purifying power of prophecy. of prophecy. And as we look at those verses together, we're going to find that there's so much that God has for us here as he talks about prophecy or the future or the fact that we know what is going to happen for the believer in Jesus Christ. You know, when it comes to the issue of the future, there are various perspectives. Some people don't even bother thinking about the future. They live only for the here and now. There are other people who don't bother about the future. They live only in the past. And they may be marked by a kind of nostalgia that thinks that all the past was good and was golden age and all that kind of thing. There are others who focus perhaps too much on the future and not enough on the present or the past. One of my favorite writers who passed away a couple of years ago was Irma Bomback. I think Irma Bomback had her way, a skill of saying a lot of things in a humorous but insightful way. And she made this statement. She said, today we're dealing with a generation who have never really been convinced they have a future. So they live for the moment. Buy it. Use it up. Get rid of it. And then she says, the Kashmir Afghan that I thought my children would pass on to their children is being used to line the dog bed. The word people, she says, don't have a respect for the future. They live for the moment. You may have heard the story of a man who went to a fortune teller. Now, this is a sermon. This is a preacher's joke. This is not advocating going to fortune tellers, which the Bible clearly condemns. It is only an illustration, okay? So don't give me the gears after the service. It's only meant to illustrate. A man went to a fortune teller, and he had to pay twenty-five dollars to have his fortune read, and the fortune teller lady said this twenty-five dollars entitles you to ask two questions. A man was shocked and he says, well, isn't that a lot of money for only two questions? Well, yes, she said. Now, what is your second question? Some of you will get that and some of you won't. For many people, the idea of knowing the future is an incredible possibility. For the believer in Jesus Christ, we know the future. We know what's going to happen in terms of the Lord's events. Jesus Christ is going to be declared Lord of glory. And all who have come to know Him by faith will be acknowledged by Jesus Christ before the Father as His children, as His brothers, as members of His eternal family. We know that Jesus Christ is going to come back. When he's going to come back, we do not know. And as someone mentioned this morning, anybody who sets the date and says Jesus is to return at such and such a moment, we know right away from other verses that can't be when he's going to come back. I guess somebody could pursue that and name every moment and narrow it down, but that gets a little complicated, doesn't it? We're not encouraged in the Bible to set dates as to the coming of the Lord. We are encouraged to be ready. And what we'll find in just a moment here in First John chapter three is that God wants us to be very busy getting ready for the future. And the way we do that is we allow God to make us pure and holy and godly in the here and now. I've heard about... financier who was asked about long-term investments. In fact, this man, this financier was elderly and he said this, he said, son, I appreciate your question, but he said, at my advanced age, I don't even buy green bananas. Sounds like that man was ready to go. He didn't know how much time he had. The Bible indicates to us that we are to be prepared for the future. We're to be ready to meet the Lord, and we are to be busy now in getting ready for them. Notice, please, in verse twenty-eight of chapter two, first John chapter two, verse twenty-eight, says, And now, dear children, continue in him so that when he appears, we may be confident and unashamed before him at his coming. We need to be confident and ready for the Lord to come back rather than to be caught unprepared and to be ashamed when He returns. The Bible is quite clear that for the believer, he or she is to be busy with the Lord's work and to be found occupied or engaged in the concerns of Christ when the Lord returns. One writer put it this way, he said, I expect to spend the rest of my life in the future, so I want to be reasonably sure of what kind of future it's going to be. We know what kind of future lies for the Christians, lies ahead for the Christians. It is a future of living with the Lord. It's a future of no more pain. It's a future of circumstance in which the Lord will wipe away all tears. By the way, I've been doing some research on the subject of heaven this time. Next semester at school, I have what's called a study leave or a sabbatical. First one of my teaching career, and I'm looking forward to it. I may have mentioned it before. That is the spring semester coming up, beginning in January. I will not be teaching classes, and I will have the opportunity to work on a couple of things that I've been writing. And one of those is a manuscript on heaven. I tell you, if you want to re-energize your Christian life, study the wonderful doctrine of heaven. It's such a powerful set of truths that will motivate us to enjoy what we have in Christ right now, but also to anticipate what we're going to have in the by and by as He returns forth. I'm also this next semester having the opportunity to go over to India to teach for the month of February. So I'd appreciate your praying for me. It's going to be quite a different situation for me, but I'll be there from the last couple of days of January through the month of February teaching in a small Bible school in Madras, India. Never been there before, so it should be a fascinating experience. kind of situation and perhaps I'll have an opportunity to give you a bit of a report when I come back into how things go. But it's going to be, as many have already said, a life-changing experience for me to spend that time over there teaching. I'm looking forward to that. I'm anticipating that. John is telling us we ought to anticipate seeing the Lord face to face. That when we think of the big issue of prophecy, It is God announcing ahead of time what's going to take place. And we find that He does exactly that here in First John chapter three. Would you notice some of the things that He tells us here? He says in First John chapter three, verse one, how great is the love the Father has lavished on us that we should be called children of God. John is saying it's a wonderful thing that we're called children of God, that we would be named as children of God. That's a tremendous thing to be able to say, I am a child of God. I'm a follower of Jesus Christ. But he says, what's better than that? He says, and that is what we are. You know, it's one thing to be called a child of God. It's another thing to really be a child. And John's gospel, as well as this epistle of John, are quite clear that if we trusted Jesus Christ as Savior, we can know for sure that we are members of God's family. We belong to him. And as a result, we can look forward to not only living this life for him, but looking forward to that future that we have with him. John goes on to say the reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Why should we be surprised when we're persecuted for our faith? If we know the Lord, the world is not going to know us. It's a very simple equation in Scripture. It didn't recognize Him. It did not welcome Him. Why would the world welcome or recognize us? The story is told of John Wesley, who in the early eighteenth century, latter seventeenth century and eighteenth century, rode approximately a hundred thousand miles on horseback all over the United States preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ. In fact, we're told that he would go into a new area and he would start preaching and he would preach maybe for a week or two weeks just on the holiness of God and the sin of man. And he was preparing the ground, as it were. He was helping people understand that before they can get saved, they had to get lost. And then he would begin to preach the good news of the gospel. And people would come to know Christ. On one occasion, Wesley had had quite a period of time in which he had not been persecuted for the gospel. Nobody had said anything nasty to him. Nobody had tried to steal his horse. Things had just gone along smoothly. And as he was riding into one particular area, he was riding through a field, and he was thinking to himself. He was thinking out loud. Some of you do that too, don't you? When you're alone in the car, do you talk to yourself? I talk to myself too. And I argue with myself. Sometimes lose the argument. It's a sad circumstance, but I'm under medical treatment for it. No. Wesley, as he's writing through this particular area, is praying out loud. He's praying. He says, Lord, nobody's persecuted me for weeks. Am I perhaps out of your will? And at that precise moment, a farmer who hated the gospel hurled a rock right at Wesley, it just barely missed his head. Wesley saw it go by and he says, thank you, Lord. I'm not out of fellowship with you. Friends, we're not to be looking for opportunities to have rocks hurled up. But if we know the Lord Jesus Christ, the world is not going to treat us as if we are the world's best friend. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Now, think about that carefully. That is not to say that we're to go out of our way to make the world mad at us. And it certainly doesn't mean that we are to be offensive as Christians. or obnoxious as Christians. We're to be winsome in our witness. But what it does mean is that those who reject the gospel, in rejecting the gospel, are going to reject us too. I heard one preacher put it this way. He says, a lot of times he finds in his own life that he's not very bold with the gospel because he says, what I'm really afraid of is that they're going to reject Jesus Christ, and yeah, that they were going to reject me too. And then he honestly admitted, what I'm really afraid is they're going to reject me. It comes with a territory. The world is going to reject us. We don't have to go and look for persecution. It will find us. As we prepare for the future, we're to be faithful as children of God, recognizing what we are by His grace and recognizing that the world is going to give us some opposition. Notice in verse two that John says, Dear friends, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. As we look forward to that fantastic future, John is saying, we right now are children of God, but there are going to come some changes. We don't even know all the details of what we're going to be like. We're given some sketches in Scripture. I believe in First Corinthians chapter fifteen, we're taught that we're not going to be spirit floating up in heaven. We're going to get resurrection body. We're going to get glorified bodies like the body of the Lord Jesus Christ, which presumably means we're going to be able to eat. One of the first activities, fellows in heaven, is we have the marriage supper of the lamb. Aren't you looking forward to that? There's no food there. We're not sure we want to go, okay? But there's going to be the marriage supper of the lamb as one of the first occasions in heaven. We know that we're going to have bodies. We know that we are going to be both spiritual and physical, and who knows what other abilities we may have. My wife's father, who passed away this past March, loved the Lord Jesus Christ, and I may have referred to him here before to you. He died of cancer and of Alzheimer's and began losing all of his awareness of his situation in knowing the Lord Jesus Christ. And I remember that shortly before he passed away, he and I were sitting on our front porch in Columbia. He and my mother-in-law live in New Jersey, and he was sitting on the front porch with me, and at this stage, the Alzheimer's was getting pretty bad. And I said, Dad, are you looking forward to being with the Lord in heaven? Are you looking forward to that? He looked at me and he said, I hope so. I hope I get there. Now, that was a little humorous to me. Let me tell you why. This man knew the Lord Jesus Christ. I think from when he was a young man, he had served the Lord Jesus Christ his whole life. That's not why he was saved. I'm simply saying those were evidences that there's no doubt in my mind that my father-in-law knew the Lord Jesus Christ. And it reminded me of a statement by Paul in the book of Galatians. where he says to the Galatians, now that you know God, or rather are known by God. You ever notice that verse? What's more important than me knowing God? That's an easy question, right? God knowing me. God knowing me. And I could say to my father-in-law sitting on that front porch, I could say, Dad, you may not remember, but God knows me. God knows me. I wonder what he's doing right now. I believe he's enjoying perhaps just looking into the face of his Savior, being thankful for being saved from his sin. John is saying to us in this passage, we don't know all the details of what we shall be when we get there. What we will be, verse two, has not yet been made known, but there is something we do know. We know that when he appears, We shall be like him. We shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. I understand that one explorer by the name of Sir Henry Morton Stanley was once asked if he had been frightened of the incredible, horrifying jungle that had daunted previous explorers, and he said this, He said, I did not see the whole. I only saw this rock ahead of me. I only saw this poisonous snake, which I had to kill in order to take the next step. I only saw the problem directly in front of me. If I had seen the whole thing, I would have been too overwhelmed to have attempted this exploration. Isn't that interesting? I believe there are aspects of the future that God holds back from us. And he doesn't tell us because if we knew those details, it would probably paralyze. This morning in Sunday school class, those of you who weren't here, we have your names written down. We know that you weren't here. But we had a good adult Sunday school class this morning and we're talking about the future. We're talking about this text. And I said, what if you knew then exactly within the next month, you'd break a leg. What if you knew that? You knew that was going to happen. How would you live tomorrow? Now, I got the super-spiritual answers from the super-spiritual people. I just love Jesus. And there are a couple of honest ones. If I recall, it was only me. I don't think it was anybody here. But there was at least one honest person who said, I'd be terrified. I'd be afraid to take another step. Have you ever thought about the fact that God's mercy is shown in not giving you all the details about what's going to happen in the next thirty days? In other words, when those things happen, He gives more grace, gives us grace to handle those things when they come. He doesn't tell us all the details of what will happen, but He does tell us the big point. What does He tell us there in verse two? He says, we're going to see Jesus. We're going to see Jesus. And when we see Him, it is going to have an incredible effect upon us it's going to have an incredible effect upon us we will see him and we will be like him now i think there's room for christians to differ on this the issue i'm going to raise right now and so uh you know feel free to share your opinion with me afterwards if you wish but there are some christians who believe that any artistic portrayal of jesus is idolatrous That is, we shouldn't have any pictures of what artists think Jesus may have looked like. It'd be wrong to have that. In our homes, it would be wrong to have Bibles with pictures of what artists think Jesus may have looked like. There are some Christians who feel that, and they feel that very keenly. On the other hand, there are some of us Christians who don't object to those kind of things. We have no problem when we give our children Sunday school papers in which Jesus is represented by some particular artist. But you know what, we don't know what the Lord Jesus looked like. We really don't. And the four Gospels, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John really don't tell us. Because the four Gospels, I would suggest, are not strictly biographies. There are a lot of things about the earthly life of Jesus that they don't tell us. They skip the whole first twelve years of his life. There's only one episode in his first twelve years that's even recorded, and that's the teenager or the preteen Jesus in the temple at age twelve. From age twelve to age thirty, we know almost nothing about Jesus. What we learn is that at age approximately at age thirty, he is baptized, he is tempted in the wilderness, he enters into a public preaching ministry. Prior to that point, what we know is that he assisted his adoptive earthly father, Joseph, in his carpenter shop. That's about all we know. The Gospels are not strictly biographies of Jesus. They manic account of the life of the Lord. They means that are presented in order to lead people to sin. We don't know what the Lord looks like. We really don't. Scholars have surmised that if he were a typical Jewish male of the day, he perhaps would have had a beard. His hair might have been when most of us either choose to have or are full of having, and the Lord would have had a rugged look, and they're excited. But we really don't know. We really don't know. I think there are a few hints, by the way, in Scripture. Why is it Thomas, not Thomas, but Judas Iscariot's services were needed? You recall the religious leaders and the Romans paid Judas Iscariot thirty pieces of silver to betray the Lord Jesus Christ. It was the one that he kissed that was Jesus. Now it could have been because it was dark. On the other hand, some have suggested it's because Jesus looked as any other Jewish male of the day. You couldn't pick him out of a crowd. France, this may come as a shock, he did not walk through life with a halo over his head. You knew that, didn't you? You couldn't look at a group of Jewish men, I'm suggesting, and pick out the one that was Jesus. The religious leaders, the authorities needed someone to betray the Lord. I don't know what the Lord looked like. I don't know what its physical appearance is today. What we do know from verse two is that we are going to see Him. We are eventually going to see the Lord. And when we see Him, it will have an incredible effect on us. Scholars have talked about something called the beatific vision. By the phrase beatific vision, they simply mean the human being seeing God, seeing God. We're going to see God manifest in the flesh. And John says in verse two, When he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is. In other words, the Christian life is a long series of steps of growth in holiness. And when we finally see the Lord, he will finish the process. He will finish the process. When we see him, we will become like him. Please notice that John goes on in verse three and emphasizes the fact that that particular certainty, that future hope ought to change us in the here and now. Notice in verse three, he says, everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself just as he is pure. Just as he is pure. That is, Looking forward to that day when we will see the Lord face to face should motivate us in the here and now to become more like Him. The writer Thomas Carlyle put it this way, he said our grand business is not to see what lies dimly at a distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand. What lies clearly at hand? The business of becoming like the Lord Jesus Christ. the business of growing as Christians. That's our theme here in First John. That's what we should be about. But as we're involved in that and committed to that, it is in light of that certain future of seeing the Lord Jesus Christ face to face. Face to face. What's that going to be like? Have you thought about it, Mark? It's going to happen. And John said back in verse twenty eight, May it not happen in such a way that we would be unashamed at His coming. How's that for a way of looking at our Christian lives? That I would live my Christian life day by day in such a way that if the Lord Jesus Christ were to come and I see Him face to face, rather than being tempted, turn away, turn my head away in shame. I would be able to lock eyes with the Lord, with eyes of gratefulness and thankfulness for saving me. John says, everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself even as he is purified. Let's think about this issue of purifying ourselves. A number of years ago, there was an advertisement in a magazine that I thought was pretty interesting from one perspective, from another perspective, kind of sad. And the ad was very brief, and it read as follows, in this age of televangelists who sinned. politicians who lie, athletes who cheat, billionaires who evade taxes, movie stars who assault policemen, baseball managers who gamble, and teen idols who make home movies. Isn't it nice to know there's still one thing that's completely pure, one hundred percent pure corn oil, Missoula? That was the ad. That was the ad. Isn't it nice to know there's still one thing that's completely pure? Well, that may be the case in terms of corn oil, but we belong to a perfectly pure God. As we look forward to that day of seeing him face to face, it ought to make a difference right now. Verse three, everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself just as he is pure. I've mentioned here that I grew up in an assembly in North Carolina and have a lot of fond memories of getting saved as a teenager and being encouraged, especially by the elders that were there. And I remember my first few years as a believer growing very quickly and thankful that God had saved me and thrilled that I was no longer on my way to a lost eternity. But back then, and maybe it was true of this chapel as well back in the... late fifties, early sixties. We got a lot of visiting speakers who would come in and speak to us, but they would, almost all of them, it seemed to me, speak on the issue of prophecy. We even had some preachers who would come and they'd bring their own banner. They'd have a huge banner that would stretch from one side to the other called From Eternity to Eternity. Did y'all have that preacher? Did you ever people do that? I mean, what's that? Yeah, from eternity to eternity. And they were great charts. They were charts that started creation and had little diagrams about all that and go all the way through crucifixion and the resurrection and talk about second coming, new heavens, new earth, heaven and hell. It was great. Although I must admit that some of those preachers who use that big old chart weren't very exciting themselves as speakers, and I thought their sermons would last from eternity to eternity. What I do remember though, and I'm thankful for the teaching that I got in those early years, I do remember there were a few preachers who would come and maybe they brought their chart, maybe they didn't, but they talk about prophecy. And I remember they would talk a lot about how we're going to see the Lord and this event's going to happen here and this one's going to precede that one. And here's the details here and they'd jump over to Zechariah and back to Hezekiah and back to Malachi and all these, and they would talk about all this kind of stuff. And I'm sitting there as a young Christian saying, what difference does that make right now? That is, I think for a few of them, they got so caught up in some speculation about the future that they didn't ask the question. So what? What about right now? Look at verse three. John doesn't miss that question. First John three, three, everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself just as he is pure. I believe it can be shown that whenever the Bible spends time talking about the future, talking about prophecy, there will be a challenge within that material about the present. There'll be a challenge that we should be different people right now. That as God reveals to us what the future is going to bring, God challenges us to be different people in the here and now. We're to purify our world. That if we're to be actively engaged in this process of becoming like the Lord Jesus Christ, as we look forward to that day of seeing Him face to face. Rather than, as we mentioned in Sunday school class this morning, rather than buying ascension clothes, taking our kids out of school, quitting our jobs, and waiting at the top of some mountain peak for Jesus to return. We're to be busy serving Him in this life. We're to be actively involved in seeking to win other people to Jesus Christ. And we're to give due attention, verse three, to the process of purification in our own life. We're to be growing in holiness. Someone put it this way. He said, an evil thought came in. It settled down, stayed. Oh, may I learn my lesson sure and give no thought, give no room to thought in pure? Do you get the better? In other words, we make choices every day, thousands of them, to either move on in godliness and grow in grace or to allow our lives to be tainted by sin and, as someone has said, grown in disgrace. An evil thought came in today. It settled down. I let it stay. Oh, may I learn my lesson sure and give no room to thought impure. You see, friends, we have choices to make, don't we? Every single day, you and I make choices. And we can make choices that honor Christ. And as John says in verse three, we can make progress in purity as we anticipate His second coming. As we anticipate meeting the Lord face to face and all the tremendous joy that that's going to bring, we can do it in a prepared way as we've been investing our lives in the things that matter to the Lord Jesus Christ. There's a purifying power of prophecy. You may have heard the story that when the first century Christians would greet each other, They didn't say to each other like, hi, how are you? The other person would say, hello back. They had a different greeting. They would say to each other, he has risen. And the other person would say, he has risen indeed. Isn't that a great way to greet each other? He has risen. He has risen indeed. Instead of this kind of namby-pamby, you know, hello, how are you, that kind of stuff. I like to make a recommendation. I'm sure nobody's going to take it so seriously that it'll change the way we greet each other. But think about it for a moment. If the early Christians focus upon the resurrection of Jesus Christ, He is risen. He is risen indeed. Probably be good for us to focus on His second coming and to say to each other, not hello or how are you, but to say to each other, He's coming back. And the other person says, Maybe today. Wouldn't that raise our consciousness that has come? He's coming back. Maybe today. That's true. If it could happen today. And I think the Bible says it could happen today. What manner of peace ought we to be? What choices ought I to make today, tomorrow, this week, in advancing in godliness, in growing in purity? in seeking by God's grace to become even just a little bit more like his son. Donald Gray Barnhouse was fond of telling a particular story that had to do about people living in Edinburgh, a fishing village and an area that had a large fishing fleet. And he said every year they would go off to the Newfoundland banks The fish, they'd be gone for months, and when they'd return, all the families in the village would gather on the dock. He describes one incident where the captain is looking through the field glasses, the binoculars at the dock as the ship is coming in, and he would say, Jacques, I see your Mambi and your two girls are waiting for you there. Bill, there's your Frida. John, I see Sarah and your children. They're right there on the dock waiting for you. And the story goes that one man by the name of Angus said to the captain, Captain, do you see my wife there on the dock? Captain looked one more time and he said, I'm sorry, Angus. I don't see your wife there. So when the ship docked, Angus got off the ship and he went to the dock. He looked anxiously for his wife. He couldn't find her. So he made his way up the hill to the house where he lived and he went in. And his wife greeted him with these words. She said, oh, Angus, I've been waiting for you. So he replied, but the rest of the family were watching. Are you watching? There's a difference, you know, between simply hanging around, waiting around. Watch. He's going to come back. We're going to see him. We're going to see Him as He is. And when we see Him as He is, He will be like Him forever. Let's pray. Father, thank you for your grace to us today. Thank you that you invite us in to be members of your family. You invite us in to be co-workers with Christ. You invite us in. to the excitement of knowing the future. Thank you for what you told us this morning in your words. But Lord, help us to make choices today to become more like the Lord Jesus Christ. Help us to be people of purity. Some of us, Father, are wired up in such a way that if we really pursue purity, we get it messed up and we think that means we're not to have any relationship with non-Christians, that we're to somehow gather our ascension robes around us and just wait for that second coming. That's not what you mean by purity. You want us to be godly and godly society. You want us to be witnesses. You want us to be your voice in this world. Help us to do that. Lord, encourage your people this week. And, Father, we pray that you might indeed move us on in our own personal growth and purity. For we pray in Jesus' name. Amen.