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The Glory Of God In His Church (Ephesians 3:21)
I. Glory Belongs To God Alone — ‘To him be glory’
II. Glory Dwells In His Church Through Christ — ‘In the church and in Christ Jesus’
III. Glory Will Not Fail — ‘Throughout all generations, forever and ever’
IV. Glory Demands A Response — ‘Amen’
Blessed morning to one and all in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ our Saviour.
This morning we are going to look at this verse from Ephesians chapter 3, verse 21. And this verse is heart of this book. If you say Ephesians is a panoramic vision of the church, then this book is surely the greatest exeology ever written.
This letter speaks of the church in two movements. In the first two is about the birth of the church. The second part is the growth of the church. In the church is born of Father's will, for his eternal purpose, and the blood of Jesus Christ. The church growth through the continual feeling of the Holy Spirit.
But Ephesians teaches us something even deeper. Before there was a world, before there was history, before there was seeing, there was already one beloved in the eternal purpose of God – the church of Christ. Chosen by the Father, redeemed by the Son, destinate for the glory.
And when time itself comes to an end, when every kingdom has fallen and every earthly glory has failed, there will again be but one redeemed, united to Christ, the bride of the lamp, the new Jerusalem.
The church begins before the history and outlives history, and everything in between is the story of the growth of the church. Yet, this growth is no ordinary development. It's supernatural.
So, we know that the hope of church does not finally rest upon her leaders, her resources, even her circumstances. The hope of the church rests in the gospel itself.
Therefore, Ephesians refuses to let us begin with the church as we see her. It insists that we begin with the church as God sees her. Not from earth, but from heaven. From above. From eternity.
Ephesians teaches us to understand the church through the mystery of the gospel rather than through the disappointments of our experience. Or we can put it simply, the secret of the church lies in beholding the majesty of God's glory and the greatness of his power.
Yet today for many of us one of the religious affections most lacking among modern Christianity, among modern Christians, is a sense of sublime. A sense of holy greatness. A sense of standing before something infinitely larger than ourselves. Something glorious, something overwhelming.
In this sense Ephesians may well be counted among the most sublime, the awe inspiring writing. For Ephesians it teaches us that if we would know the church we must begin where Christ is.
Before the foundation of the world God chose the church in Christ. After his resurrection Christ ascended into heaven and sat down at the right hand of the Father. And one day he shall come again with power and great glory.
We cannot understand the church merely by looking at her present condition. The tragedy of modern Christianity is that many Christians have never seen the church from where God sees her. They begin with what the church is now, but Paul began with what she shall be.
And is precisely here that Paul brings the first half of Ephesians to its majesty climax. At the end of chapter 3, after one of the boldest prayers recorded in all Scripture, the apostle breaks forth into praise: "Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen." (Ephesians 3:21)
In this doxology, the spotlight of the universe falls not only upon Christ, but upon the church united to Christ. For the glory of God in Christ and the glory of God in His church can never be separated.
Indeed, after the fall, the glory of God is perfectly revealed only in Christ. And now Christ has chosen to make Himself known in the world through His body, His church. The church is the dwelling place of His glory.
And that leads us to the great question of our text. We have to think about it. Why does Paul say so?
I. Glory Belongs To God Alone — ‘To him be glory’
We begin from the first the beginning part of this verse, ‘to him be glory.’ My first point is: Glory belongs to God alone.
To him be glory. Not unto us, not unto our programs, not to our own tradition or our preachers or our church’s reputation. Only to Him. To God. This is a doxology, a word of glory. And the first thing and doxology does is fix the direction. Glory flows one way, upward to God alone.
Now, there is a distinction here that matters. Theologians talk about two kinds of glory. There is intrinsic glory, what God in Himself what God is in Himself. In His own eternal nature the glory cannot be added to. It cannot be diminished. Before the universe existed, God was infinitely glorious. And if everything were destroyed tomorrow, He would still be infinitely glorious. We contribute nothing to that.
Then there is ascribed glory, the glory we render to God; the praise, the worship, the public declaration of who He is and what He has done. This is what Paul is calling for. To him be glory. Let it be declared. Let it be proclaimed. Let it be the orientation of everything we do.
Even John Calvin, commenting on this verse, he says that praise cannot remain private. You cannot give God the glory He deserves by yourself in your own heart with the curtains drawn. God's glory demands a community. It demands a gathered people who gather publicly, visibly, declare His worth. Which is why Paul doesn't say ‘in my own or in my show.’ He says, "In the church."
There is a subtle temptation in every human heart. We are willing to give glory to God as long as some of it comes back to us. We want God to be glorified because He has blessed us. We want God to be glorified because He has used us. And we want God to be glorified because our church is growing, because our prayers are being answered, because things are going well.
But I want all of us to understand the glory not only in such sense. You know, there is a two kinds of theology in the church. I want to illustrate it in such a way.
If you ever kept pets like dog and cat, you know these two animals are different personalities. When you kept a dog, when the dog looked at everything its master does for the dog – you provide the food, shelter, and care – and the dog will draw a conclusion that you must be his master. Because you are so good to him. You are so good to him. So, some people call this is dog theology. Because it's master-centred. Because he think that, ‘Okay, this man treat me so well. The only reason is he's my master.’
Then if you look at a cat, a cat looks at exactly the same situation and it draws the opposite conclusion. The cat thinks that you feed me, you care for me, you protect me, you even clean after me. Then I must be your god. Or I must be your master. Or else, how come you treat me so well? That is cat theology.
So, if we are honest, many of us bring a subtle form of cat theology in the church. We think that God blesses us, God forgives us, God answers our prayers, God gives us families and ministries and opportunities. And then gradually we begin to imagine that all of this must somehow be about us. That we are centre of the story. That God's chief concern is our happiness, our fulfilment, our experience in every service.
So, the centre of the worship service is not that of us sitting down and be served. It's we come to the Lord, come to the house of the Lord, and we all together serve the Lord.
Paul will not allow us to think that we like a cat theology. The gospel does not teach that God exists for us. The gospel teaches that we exist for God. And nowhere is that clearer than in the church itself.
Why did Christ love the church? Was it because the church was lovely? No. The church was sinful, weak, even rebellious, and unworthy. Christ did not die because we are glorious or we were glorious. Christ died in order to make us glorious. The glory belongs to Him before it ever shines upon us.
That is exactly where our text begins. To him be glory. And if we are honest, this cat theology has a theological root. It's a problem with which Christ we have chosen to follow.
Here is what I mean. We are very comfortable with Christ. We call it the priest. The Christ who forgives, the Christ who says, ‘Thy sins are forgiven thee.’ The Christ who died for us, who bore who bore our guilt, who took our place. We love that Christ. And we need that Christ.
But there is another Christ. The risen Christ, the Christ who ascended and was given all authority in heaven and on earth. The Christ who says, "Go ye therefore, and teach all nations." (Matthew 28:19,) The Christ who says, ‘If he will not hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican.’ (Matthew 18:17)
The Christ who is head over all things to the church. That Christ makes demands. That Christ has authority. That Christ will not be managed or to a function that serves our personal spiritual needs.
And there is a uncomfortable truth. Many of us have quietly decided that we prefer the first Christ to the second. Of course, Christ is a priest, but we have to know He is a king. He's a Lord. We want a Savior without the Lord. Forgiveness without the authority, the cross without the crown.
But you cannot have one without the other. Christ who died for the church is the same Christ who rule over the church. And if you have accepted a Christ without His crown, you have not accepted the Christ of scripture.
You have built yourself a smaller, safer, more convenient version. And a smaller Christ produces a smaller church. A Christ who exists to serve you produces a church you attend when it suits you. Of course, this smaller is not mean the size of the church, but it's about how do you think of the church. How do you feel about the church? That is not the church Paul is talking about in our text.
There is a diagnostic question buried in these three words. And it's this, is the glory of God the supreme goal of this church? Not our comfort, not our preferences about how things are done, not even our own spiritual growth. As important as that is, is the glory the point?
One of the sharpest thing is this, that the most tragic form of Christianity is a individualistic Christianity that has stripped Christ of His kingship before believing in Him. A Christianity that picks the parts of Christ it likes. Forgiveness, comfort, personal peace. A Christianity that wants the Savior but not a Lord, a priest but not a king.
Paul's answer to all of that is this, to him be glory. That is the point. That is why the church exists. And if that's not what we are here for, then we've misunderstood what the church is. If glory belongs to Him alone, where has He chosen to display it? This verse tells us, in the church by Christ Jesus. We come to the heart of this verse.
II. Glory Dwells In His Church Through Christ — ‘In the church and in Christ Jesus’
My second point is the: Glory Dwells in His Church.
These two phrases side by side, in the church and in Christ.
Now when I say the church, let me be clear about what I mean because this matters. When God looks at His church, He sees perfectly who truly belongs to Christ. And He sees every person in every generation who has been redeemed by His blood and indwelt by His Spirit. That is His church as He alone sees it. The full number of the redeemed known completely to Him.
But we don't see it that way here. What we see is this, a local congregation, real people in a real place gathered around His Word and His table, imperfect people, a mixed community.
And here is what is remarkable. God has not waited for the church to be perfect before He chose to dwell in her. It is this visible concrete, sometimes messy community that Scripture calls the temple of the Holy Spirit. It is here that the glory of God had chosen to live.
So when Paul says the glory of God dwells in the church, he's not speaking of something you can belong to privately, spiritually, without any actual commitment to a real community. The church always has people you know by name. That is where the glory lives.
To understand why that is such a staggering claim, you need to trace a thread through the whole Bible. Before sin entered, the glory of God was everywhere. In the sky, the rivers, in the face of a man and a woman made in God's great image. The whole creation was a kind of theatre for His glory.
Then Adam falls and the stage goes dark. Creation doesn't stop declaring God's existence. As Romans 1 tells us, it still does that. But the clear, direct, meditated presence of God's glory is not seen. It's not revealed clearly. That we see in the Bible says the creation groans in Romans 8. It is subjected to futility waiting for redemption.
Then God begins concentrating His glory in a family, Abraham's household, then in a nation, then in a tabernacle in the wilderness, in a simplest tent where the visible presence of God descends and dwells. Then in the temple.
The glory of God has always a place but of course, it's not always the place because all these tent and temple refers to Christ. So, when Christ comes then John says, "We beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father." (John 1:14) In Jesus, the fullness of God's glory takes on human skin. Every miracle, every word, every act of mercy is display of the divine glory concentrated in one person, Christ. And then He ascends. He live. He sends His Spirit. He builds His church.
And look at what Paul says in Ephesians chapter 1, verse verse 22 to 23: God "gave him to be the head over all things to the church, Which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all." (Ephesians 1:22–23). So, the church is Christ's body. What belongs to the head belongs to the body. Where the head is glorified, the body is glorified. You cannot separate the two. And this is exactly why Paul puts in the church and in Christ Jesus side by side in our verse.
So, after Adam's fall, God's glory is only fully displayed in one person, Christ. And after Christ's ascension, if you want to go somewhere in this world and see God's glory, there is only in His church.
The church is, as Paul says in in Ephesians 2, built together for a habitation of God through the Spirit. The church is the one place on earth where God has specifically, intentionally choose to dwell. And this is not a figure of speech. Paul making a precise theological statement. This is what the church is.
There is a very common attitude in our generation, and I've heard it from thoughtful, sincere people that goes something like this. I love Jesus. I'm committed to Jesus, but the institutional church I can take it or leave it. I'll maintain my faith privately. I'll listen to sermons online. I'll gather informally with a few friends, and I don't need to be formally committed to a local church.
I want to say this as kindly as directly as I can. That position is not a higher form of Christianity. It is a diminished form. Because you cannot love the head while being indifferent to the body.
You cannot say I love Christ while treating His church with contempt or with indifference. The two are inseparable. Christ has permanently bound Himself to His church. The church is His body. She is His bride. What you do to her in some deep sense is you do to Him.
This is not a organisational loyalty issue. This is Christology. How do know Christ? Then how do you know His body? When you misunderstand the church, then you also misunderstand Christ.
If someone came to you and said, ‘I think you are wonderful. I I want to be your friend, and I want nothing to do with your wife. I can't stand her.’ How would you respond? You would be deeply offended. Right?
If someone says to Christ, ‘I love you, but your church, I'd rather keep my distance.’ Christ's response will be stronger than any offense we could take. Because the church is His heart's desire. The church is His one love, and not to love her is not to love Him.
Church is a community through which God has chosen to display His glory. Unless we also misunderstand what the glory is. And that means the private spirituality, as good as it is, and it is good, the private spirituality is not the whole of what God intends. God intends a gathered people, a visible community, a body of people who together, in their life together, display something of the glory of Christ. So, this glory should be shown in the manner of gathering of God's covenantal people.
It's not that you say, ‘Oh, okay, I'm a Christian, then I am a good person, and I am nice to everybody around me, then people can see the glory of God in myself alone." But, that's not a full picture. God want to display His glory in His church even in the future, He will share His glory with His church to this whole universe.
III. Glory Will Not Fail — ‘Throughout all generations, forever and ever’
Then, Paul adds a time signature to this doxology. "Throughout all ages, world without end. Amen." (Ephesians 3:21).
“World without end” is old phrase. It means there is no end to this. God will be glorified in His church not for season, not for generation, until forever, world without end.
The true church, the body of Christ, Paul says, ‘This will not end.’ Paul uses this phrase deliberately to assure us that the church will be preserved forever. That there will always be a seed. That the record of salvation will never become fruitless. That even when internal enemies do their worst, even when the building seems to be collapsing, God will overcome all of it by His power so that the church continues. Even Christ said it plainly, "the gates of hell shall not prevail against it." (Matthew 16:18). That's a covenant of promise.
So, the church should not be closed down. I heard, just now I heard, Bethel Bible Church will have your 40th anniversary. But, I believe that God's glory should be shown in His church forever and ever again.
Here is what I want you to hear in this phrase. When you commit to this church, when you decide to make this your community, to plant your life here, to invest your time and your relationships, and your resources here, you are not making a bet on a human institution. And you are committing yourself to the only thing in the world that God Himself has guaranteed will outlast everlasting else.
Governments will change. Everything in this world will look different. In 50 years, the cultural landscape will shift in ways we cannot predict. But, the church of Christ will still be here glorifying God, declaring His glory to a watching world. Filled with His Spirit, world without end.
I know that many of us live with a kind of provisional relationship to the church. We are here while it suits us, while the stage of life fits, or while we are in Melbourne, or while things are going reasonable well. But Paul's vision is different. He sees the church as the most permanent institution in the universe and it's true. And it's a place where God chosen to be glorified in a world without end. It a deserves more than our provisional, conditional, whatever it suits me participation.
I also want to say something for those of you who are discouraged about the church. Maybe you've been hurt. Maybe you seen leadership fail or community fracture or promises broken. Maybe this church itself has disappointed you in some way. I want you to be honest. Local churches can fail. Individual congregation can close. Leaders can fall. This is the painful reality of living in a fallen world with fallen people.
But hear this, the church, the bride of Christ, the body He purchased with His own blood, she will not be abandoned. She is still the place where God has chosen to be glorified even when she is weak, even when she is broken, even when she has spot or wrinkle or any such thing. She has not being forsaken. The glory will not depart.
World without end. That's God's promise and God's feeling.
IV. Glory Demands A Response — ‘Amen’
Now we come to the last part: Glory demands a response. Amen.
And now we come to this this very last word of the verse. “Amen”. It's only one syllable, the shortest word in the sermon, and, in many ways, the most important.
We see this word constantly at the end of prayers and end of a sermons, sometimes automatically, barely thinking about it. They become the period, a full stop, a way of marking the end of something. But that's not what it’s here.
In the synagogue tradition, when the leader would offer a doxology, a praise to God, the congregation would response together out loud, ‘Amen.’ It was a declaration. It meant we agree, we affirm this, we stick our lives on this being true.
So notice where this amen falls in the letter. Paul has just spent three chapters, three of the most theologically dense chapters in the New Testament, laying out what God has done in Christ and what the church is and what she is for and what she will become. And he ends it all with this word, "Amen."
Then immediately the chapter 4 says, "I therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, beseech you that ye walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called." (Ephesians 4:1).
The “amen” here is a hinge. Doctrine becomes a duty right here. The great affirmation of what God has done becomes the foundation for how we are to live. It's not just the theology or the doctrine that you hear and understand. Amen means you're going to live it out in in your own life. John Stott once wrote this, ‘A doctrine leads to doxology. Doxology leads to duty.’ That's the structure of Ephesians. And the amen is where it turns.
When you say amen to this verse, you are not just agreeing with a theological statement, you are committing yourself to this doctrine. It's not about what you believe in, but it's about how are you going to live it?
You are saying, ‘I believe the glory of God dwells in His church. I believe this community is not just a useful social structure. I believe this is a body of Christ. And because I believe that, I'm going to live accordingly.’
I want to share two things here. The church is where God's glory dwells. Not because she is perfect. She's not. We know the church is not perfect. Not because everyone here is easy to love. And they are not also. Not because everything is managed efficiently or the service are always exactly what you would prefer. But because God has chosen her. Because Christ has bound Himself to the church because His glory is manifested in the church.
And so I stay. I stay in the church. I bound myself to the church. I don't stay for the music. I don't stay because this is the most convenient option. I don't stay because I'm getting something out of it every moment. I stay just because this is where He has chosen to be.
And I am committed to where He is committed. And let me say something about what commitment actually looks like because I think we have a very diluted version of it in our heads. Many of us are willing to serve, and that is genuinely good. But there is a question worth asking. Willing to serve on whose terms?
Because there is a kind of service that is really just self-management with the spiritual label. I will serve when I feel called to serve. I will give when I feel moved to give. I will show up when it fits my schedule. I will stay in this church as long as it meets my needs, aligns with my season of life, and doesn't ask too much of me. That is not commitment.
Real commitment means submitting your agenda to the church's agenda. It means being willing to serve in ways that were not your idea, at a times that are not convenient, with the people you did not choose. It means your gifts are not yours to deploy on your own terms. They were given to you for the building up of this body. And this body gets to have a say in how they are used. Saying amen to the doxology means saying amen to that kind of commitment. It means deciding this is my church, this is my people, this is the place I will plant my life here.
We tend to think of spiritual growth as something that happens privately. In our quiet time, in our personal Bible reading or Bible study, in our individual prayer life, and those things matter. They genuinely do. But that is not the whole picture. If that is the only picture you have, you have accepted a diminished version of Christian life.
You cannot become the person God intends you to be in isolation. You need the church, not as a supplement to your private spirituality, as the very environment in which God shapes you. God use the people around you, your sisters and your brothers to shape to shape you.
You cannot say, ‘I myself, I only read the Bible and I will be like mature Christian.’ Think about this. Think about it in this way. There are strong people in this hall and there are weak people. There are people with gifts that others do not have. And here is what Paul says about that.
Your strength is not yours to enjoy. Your gifts is not yours to take pride in. Your strength exists for the sake of the weak. Your gifts was given not to diminish or not to distinguish you from others, but to build others up.
The strong are not meant to look down on the weak. The gifted are not meant to use their gifts as a reason to feel superior. If you have something that someone else does not have, that is not your capital. That is your calling. God gave it to you so that you would give it away. To the church, to your community. To the brothers and sisters that you naturally dislike, but by the grace of God, by the power of Holy Spirit, you start to serve him, to love them.
This is why your spiritual growth is not only a private project, it is a communal one. You are built up by building others, and you cannot do any of that alone with the curtains closed, just you and your Bible and your prayer journal. You need the body, and the body needs you.
There's the second form this commitment takes, and this one might be harder to hear. Saying amen to the glory of God in the church means becoming a guardian of the church, and not a critic of her.
I'm not saying that every institution that calls itself a church is one. Scripture warns us about false teachers and congregations that have abandoned the gospel. There are times when faithfulness means leaving a place that has turned away from Christ. That is not what I am talking about.
I am talking about is a true gospel-preaching church, a real congregation of Christ's people, however imperfect. When we are dealing with that, our basic posture must be to build up, not to tear down. And to build up the church is not a duty of the pastor of the church alone is belongs to all people. Every of us in the church.
Let me be careful here. I'm not saying the church is beyond correction. Ephesians 4:15 tells us to speak the truth in love. There is a place for honest, direct, loving engagement with what is wrong. There is a part of what it means to care for the church.
One of the most dangerous things a person can do is to develop the habit of speaking against the church in general, but not naming specific things or specific people, which is appropriate, but cultivating a general contempt for the church as a institution. Because he says that contempt is not direct at the church. It is directed at Christ. It is a form of saying, without using those words, I know better than the one who died for her.
So actually you say Paul and Jesus. When Jesus say something about the Jewish people, about the Jews, actually against the whole religion. But you see when Paul talk about the church, he specifically pointed out the thing and pointed out the people. He is not generally speak something about the church.
The reason why we don't like to speak or naming out specific things or specific people because we want to keep our good relationship with someone. So we speak generally bad about the church, about the congregation. But that's not Paul's point. Paul said, you need to speak truth in love. Because you love the church.
Saying amen means this, I will bring my concerns, my disagreements to the church directly, honestly, in love, but I will refuse to become someone who tears down what God has chosen to build up. That's what it means to be guarding.
Before I ask you Say amen, I want give you an illustration. We see the opposite side there is a construction site, building site. You probably walked past it without thinking too much about it. But it's a building site we see that scaffolding everywhere, unfinished walls, materials in disorder. It doesn't look like much right now. But there is a blueprint and there is architect and the building is going up. Even when I first came, it's just a frame, but now already build build build up. And in the future I believe there will be a beautiful house.
That is exactly what the church is. When you commit yourself in His church, you are working into a construction zone. Imperfect people, noise, and disorder, and all the complications that come from real human beings trying to live together under the lordship of Christ.
It's messy, and we all see that. We all know that, but there is what I want to let you know from the bottom of my heart, the mess is not a reason to leave. The scaffolding is not a sign that the building has failed. The mess is exactly where God has chosen to work. The scaffolding means the building is still going up.
And one day, the scaffolding will come down, and what will be revealed is the most glorious structure in the universe, the bride of Christ, the dwelling place of the glory of God, world without end.
So, when I ask you to say amen today, I am not asking for a confident triumph amen. I'm asking for a dusty one. The amen of someone who has looked at the scaffolding and look at the blueprint and decide to stay, commit, and build. Because they believe that the architect knows what he's doing.
Amen to the glory of God in the church.
In this church, in this unfinished, still being built, covered in scaffolding church. It is hard. But you still say amen. You still say amen to giving your strength to someone who is weak. Amen to using your gifts to build others up. Not to set yourself apart. You think that you are holier than others, that's why I don't want to go to prayer meeting. I don't want to see these people. Then you are misuse the gift that God give you. Say amen to the most glorious building site on earth. Because we know that in the future, in the eternity, is perfect. The church will manifest the glory of God.
We know this letter is Paul writes from prison. He doesn't know if he ever be released. And in that condition, with all the reasons in the world to be cynical about institutions and organisations and human communities, he write this: "Unto him be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end. Amen." (Ephesians 3:21)
He knows the church is imperfect. He has spent half of his ministry dealing with her imperfections in Corinth, in Galatia, in Ephesus itself. He knows that the building site is messy, but he knows what the building is. That's why Paul wrote a lot of letters and again and again and pray for the church.
He knows that the church is the body of Christ. He knows that the glory of God in Christ and the glory of God in the church are inseparable. He knows that this community, this particular concrete imperfect gathering of people should be the place where God has chosen to be glorified. And knowing all of that, Paul ends with one word, amen.
Can you say amen to the glory of God in this church not because she is perfect, but because He has chosen her? Therefore our worry is not about ourself anymore, but about the holiness, about the sanctification, about the duty of this church.
I hope the Lord help us to see the glory and we are moved by that glory that we want to serve the Lord in many ways. And we ought to gather to love one another that the world will see this is the disciples of Christ. This is the body of Christ. This is the church that Christ has choose and has shed His blood.
May the Lord help us and have mercy on us.
Let's pray.
Our glorious and heavenly Father, we thank thee for Thy holy Word. We thank Thee for Thy church which Thou has chosen before the foundation of the world, redeemed by Thy precious blood of Thy Son and in the world by Thy Holy Spirit.
Lord, forgive us for our thoughts we have often entertained concerning thy church. Forgive us when we have loved our own comfort more than Thy glory and our own interest the more than the good of Thy people.
Grant unto us a deeper love for the church of Christ. Help us to see her as Thou does see her, not merely in her present weakness but in the glory that Thou has purposed for her from eternity.
Teach us to love what Christ loves. Teach us to serve where Christ has placed us. Teach us to labour faithfully for the building up of His body.
And when we become discouraged by the imperfections of Thy people remind us that Christ is still the head of the church. That He is still building her and that He shall surely present her unto Himself a glorious perfect church.
Oh Lord, show us both the cross and the crown. Keep us faithful in the days of labour while we look forward to the day when faith shall become sight. And the bride of Christ shall be revealed in all her beauty and glory.
Unto Thee be glory in the church by Christ Jesus throughout all ages, world without end.
We pray and give thanks in Jesus Christ our Lord Saviour. Amen.