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This is the First Mustang Pulpit Podcast, a podcast of the weekly preaching and teaching at First Mustang. Thank you for joining us.!
We have spent a couple of weeks in this short passage and we'll do so one more time today. Just as a reminder of where we're going, having finished our walk through the Gospel of Mark.
We're taking just a few weeks to look at a few different themes in Scripture. On Sunday nights, we are finishing our study through 1 Thessalonians.
We've got two weeks left of that. And then shortly after that, we will begin on Sunday mornings walking through 2 Thessalonians. But for a few weeks, we're trying just to touch on a few different themes and topics that I hope are helpful for us here at the first of a new year.
And so we're in 1 Peter 4, 7 to 11. And this passage is speaking to us about how we as Christians, as a church, how we are to live.
We've already seen three admonitions for God's people. One is that we are to be self-controlled and sober-minded. That we are to live in a way that our mind is brought under the authority of the Word of God.
That our mind is to be controlled by His Word. That our passions are to be controlled by what would be honoring to Him. Second, that we are to be supremely loving each other.
Verse 8 says, Above all, keep loving one another earnestly. We are third, to be showing hospitality.
Verse 9, show hospitality to one another without grumbling. These are the three things we've looked at from this passage so far. And let me just back up a bit to pick up where we left off last Sunday morning.
We looked at a few practical ways that we can show hospitality to each other. The very word hospitality is a compound word that literally would translate and mean love of the stranger.
And so when you think about practicing hospitality, it absolutely includes being kind to those that we don't know. It tells us that we are to have a heart for people as we meet them.
That we don't go through our lives being a closed group. As if we have all the friends we'll ever need. We don't need to talk to anybody else. We don't need to know anybody else.
We want to be kind to those that are strangers to us. Inside the church and outside the church. We want to have an influence for Christ beyond our church walls.
It also though does include how we treat each other. We know that because verse 9 says show hospitality to one another. This is to be the practice of the church, of the body of Christ.
That we show kindness. That we show love. That we welcome each other into our lives as the body of Christ. And one of the realities that every church must face is that as any church gets larger, it must purposefully, in one sense, stay small.
It's up to the Lord how large numerically our church is. That's His work, not ours. He builds the church. We don't. In God's providence, He has for some churches to be large numerically.
Same God, same providence may have another church to be smaller. And that's up to the Lord. And that's great. Each church just needs to be faithful to what God's called them to do. However, as a church adds to its number, as the congregation grows, if that's the Lord's will for it, that church must work to stay small.
Meaning that we purposefully work to build relationships with individuals. Because a faithful, godly church is never measured by just how many people show up.
It's measured by faithfulness. It's measured by obedience to Christ. And when you look at the New Testament's teaching to love one another and to serve one another and bear burdens with one another and pray with one another, all the one another's in the New Testament, all of that demands and requires relationships with each other.
And so, if our church runs 100 or 1100, if you're not connected to anybody, if you're not serving someone, if you're not being blessed by others, then the size is irrelevant because we would not be fulfilling what God has called us to do.
We are to love one another. We've looked at that. And we are to show hospitality to one another, which helps us stay small, connected to individuals.
It's very important. And we looked last week, just at the very end, at just some highly practical things for us to do. One was to introduce yourself to people you don't know.
Just very practically. Introduce yourself to people you don't know. I saw people doing that even in the hallway last Sunday after church. And for some, it's super easy.
And for some, it's kind of awkward. The Lord is magnified either way. When we strive to honor the Lord by being obedient to His Word, to show hospitality demands relationships.
Relationships demands connection that we know each other. And so, strive on that. Make that a point of emphasis in your life, to not be content to just show up to the same address with a bunch of strangers, but instead to see your church family truly as that, a family.
Secondly, we talked about taking ownership of the places where you are on a Sunday. Where you sit in a sanctuary, take ownership of that.
Make it your intent to meet people who are sitting around you in your Sunday school class. Take ownership of that class. And make it your intent to be there where you can greet people and talk to people you don't know and welcome them and encourage them and get to know them.
Not everybody needs to be your best friend, but it needs to be people that you know and that you have a relationship with so that you can do what comes next. What comes next is in verse 10 where we pick up today.
As each one has received a gift, use it to serve one another. So, this is our next thing, our fourth thing, and that is to serve each other.
It's hard to serve each other if you don't know each other. It's hard to serve people if you don't have a relationship with them. And so, if you were here at this last week, we did a little impromptu, deeply, deeply scientific polling here by raising your hand, of those who said initiating conversation with someone at church you don't know is easy or initiating conversation with somebody you don't know is hard.
And in both services, about two-thirds of the people said that it was hard for them to initiate conversation with people they don't know.
So, I want to encourage you with this. If you initiate a conversation with someone you don't know and it's awkward, just blame the other person because 66% chance it's their fault, all right?
But we do want to say to ourselves, if we're going to serve each other, it does demand relationship with each other. And so, it's worth it.
That awkward conversation, introducing yourself to someone that has already gone to church here for a while, introducing yourself to someone in Sunday school class when you probably should have known their name anyway, all the awkwardness lasts about 10 seconds.
Then after that, you just begin to build a friendship. So that you can love each other. So that you can be hospitable. And so that you can serve each other.
If we're going to obey what God's Word has given us to do as a church, as a people of God, it demands that we do what is right and what is best, not simply what is convenient.
So let us be serving each other. Let's look at the verse here. It says, Each has received a gift.
You see that in verse 10. The Holy Spirit imparts spiritual gifts to all believers. You might just make a note. 1 Corinthians 12 is helpful to read, particularly verses 4 to 11, to learn more about what the New Testament teaches us about that.
And that we are to use our spiritual gifts, it says, to serve one another. So when we use our spiritual gifts, the emphasis is not about drawing attention to ourselves.
The emphasis is about serving other people. Spiritual gifts are not given to the body of Christ so that we can make much of us.
Our spiritual gifts are distributed so that we can make much of Christ and serve each other. To ignore using our spiritual gifts would be disobedience.
To use our spiritual gifts with impure motives would be sin. To abuse our spiritual gifts would be manipulative. So let me be very clear here.
There is absolutely nothing about my spiritual gifts or my role in the church that demands that I always get in my way.
And for me to say that because I'm the pastor, I have to always get in my way is not using spiritual gifts. That's being manipulative. We need to be aware of that.
If you ever find yourself in a church where somebody says that their calling or their gifting or their position demands you follow them blindly or that you follow them without it being a clear instruction from the Lord, you're in the wrong place.
A lot of people will use their spiritual gifts as a form of manipulation and the Lord is never, ever glorified in that. But we don't want to neglect to use our spiritual gifts in a biblical way that does honor Christ.
Let's look at the language here. As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another as good stewards of God's very grace.
We need to understand what it means to be a steward. We're not owners of anything. Everything we have belongs to the Lord.
Your gifts belong to the Lord. Your life belongs to the Lord. Your resources belong to the Lord. Everything you have belongs to the Lord. And the quicker that we as Christians see ourselves as faithful stewards and not owners, the more quickly we will obey His Word and the more joyful we will be in that.
Your income is the Lord's. You're just a steward of it. Your life is given to you by the Lord. You're just to be a steward of it. Colossians 3.17 says, Whatever you do in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him.
Whatever you do, do it in a way that's going to make much of Christ. And think like a steward, not an owner. That you are to use everything God has given you so that the Lord is pleased.
Not that people ultimately are pleased or even that you ultimately are pleased. The ultimate goal of all things is the glory of Christ. Now, here's the way it works in the church.
Because the same Spirit who gives us spiritual gifts is the same Spirit who bonds us together, is the same Spirit who revealed the Word of God, it does work that when you use your spiritual gifts in the right way among the body of Christ, God's people are blessed and you are satisfied in that.
But the goal and the purpose behind all that we do is not ultimately to be people pleasers, it is to magnify Christ. We are to be good stewards.
And look at the end of verse 10. We are to be good stewards, speaking of spiritual gifts here, and it says, of God's varied grace. His varied grace. The word means multicolored.
You see that in James 1, where it speaks of that we are to find joy in as we face various trials, multicolored.
In other words, when you look at the body of Christ, it's described here in 1 Peter 4 as God's multicolored grace. That when we come together as the church, that we take our spiritual gifts, which are different, our backgrounds, our experiences, our education, our talents, all of it is all different, and we join together, and it becomes a multicolored grace.
It's not monotonous. We're not all teachers. We're not all with any one particular gift set. There's differences.
And that's a beautiful thing. It's a beautiful thing. If we were all the exact same, we would be terribly imbalanced.
There is a beauty of God's people joining together and people just serving and living as they have been gifted by the Holy Spirit.
You're not trying to be somebody else. You're not accountable for somebody else. You're not trying to compete with somebody else. We're just all doing what God has uniquely called us to do and equipped us in the way that He's done that.
We talk in our membership class often about this reality that if there is a need, we want to strive to meet that need, and the way that we respond to those needs are going to be different across the body.
And that's a beautiful reality. So, when you think about your spiritual gifts, some of you have taken spiritual gift tests.
When I started in ministry 30 years ago, that was the big rage. Everybody took spiritual gift tests. And they're helpful. They're not a bad thing. They can be helpful. They're a tool. But, I do think that there may be a better way to think of enacting your spiritual gifts.
And that is simply to say, when you know of needs that exist, how do you most passionately want to help? So, for example, in our membership class, we'll talk about if somebody in our church, in a Sunday school class, for example, has surgery.
They're going to be in the hospital for a week. Something serious has come up. There are some who, when they hear that need, because they love that person and they have a relationship with that person, they instinctively will say, well, I want to make sure to cook meals for them when they come home so they don't have to worry about that.
Somebody else may say, you know what, it's the summer. They're going to be gone from the home for a week at the hospital. I want to go to their house and I want to mow their lawn so they don't have to worry about that when they're gone.
Somebody else might say, they're going to have bills if they're in the hospital for a week. I want to bless them and give them financially. I want to give them a gift financially to help them with that. Somebody else might say, I want to volunteer to go up there to the hospital and sit with them for a little bit so that people in the family, if they need to run to do other things, can get that done.
I'll sit there so my friend, the patient's not by themselves. Somebody else might say, I'm going to put them on my prayer list. I'm going to make sure every single morning I'm praying by name for this family.
Whatever the different ways that you can think of serving someone, that's probably the best indication to find out where your gifts lie. Just know where the needs are. Have eyes that are looking for needs.
Have ears that are open to hear where there are needs. And then, what has God put in your heart? How has He equipped you to then go meet those needs? And you don't need to meet the needs just like somebody else does.
And some people meet needs in a way that's obvious and visible and known. And other people meet needs that are much more behind the scenes. And the Lord is glorified when we are good stewards of His varied, multicolored grace.
If everybody showed up to mow the lawn, it's not going to work very well. Your lawn doesn't need mowed four times in a day. If everybody showed up with a meal, it's not going to work.
There's going to be too much food. We need people to serve and bless each other and show hospitality and show love and use your spiritual gifts how the Lord has uniquely gifted you to do that.
And, you know, there are times where there's certain needs or even just, maybe not even just needs, just ways to serve or bless in the church that instinctively comes to my wife and the way that she often wants to serve other people to me feels like such a drag.
I don't want to do what she does. It doesn't, I just don't. And I've got to watch it because there's times I'm thinking, why would you even mess with that? And the answer is because she wants to bless people and serve them.
And I think, yeah, but that's such a pain what you're doing. What I want to do is I want to go and study and write and teach and preach and open the Bible and help them understand it and I want to do that.
but you have to understand that as the Lord puts not just families together but church families together, everybody just needs to serve according to how God has gifted them and when it all is done together, it is a beautiful tapestry of God's varied, multicolored grace.
But so many times we tend to miss it one of two ways. Either we look at somebody else's gifts and we get envious of them.
I wish I had their gifts, I wish I had their talent, I wish I had their abilities. Or we look at somebody who's doing something different than us and say, why aren't they doing what we do?
And the truth is that when you're a part of the church, you're to be a good steward of God's varied grace.
All different. One Savior, one Holy Spirit that bonds us together, one Spirit who imparts the gifts all for the glory of the Lord.
But you don't have to serve just like somebody else does. You don't have to have the same gifts someone else does. We're not competing with each other.
We're serving together. Loving each other. And so, don't miss on either side. Don't get discouraged because you think somebody else's gifts are better than yours and don't be frustrated because someone else is serving a different way than you are.
This is literally the very wording the text uses. This is God's varied. It's different, various, multicolored grace and it comes together and it makes for a beautiful church.
Now, when this text speaks of spiritual gifts, it takes really just two broad categories. There are other verses that will delineate a number of gifts.
In 1 Peter 4, it really breaks them into two main categories. Verse 11, whoever speaks, so you have a speaking gift, as one who speaks oracles of God, and whoever serves, serving gifts, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies.
So, while all of us need to be willing to help in whatever needs come up, the main way that we use our spiritual gifts is going to be in accordance with how the Holy Spirit has gifted you.
For some, that is primarily through teaching. That doesn't mean if your main gift is teaching, that you should not be willing to help in other ways.
We talk in new members class that, I don't know if anyone has the spiritual gift of taking the trash out, but somebody has to. Sometimes you just do what needs to be done.
But for those whose primary role and primary equipping to serve and bless others is through teaching, it tells us make sure you're speaking the oracles of God.
In other words, make sure what you're teaching is from the Word of God. This is paramount. This is how churches get led astray.
They have a gifted person who is often in front of the congregation and through their giftedness or through their just natural talent, they begin to lead people astray because their words are not tied to God's Word and now that church begins to follow a personality rather than following Christ.
We don't want to do that. God. If you are one who uses your gifts primarily through speaking, make sure you're speaking the oracles of God.
Make sure that it's from Him. The Bible is our standard, the Bible is our authority, the Bible is our message. God doesn't speak to me a different way than He speaks to you.
Going to seminary, being a pastor, doesn't give me a different link to the Holy Spirit than what you have as a believer. We're all children of God.
We all have the Bible and God doesn't tell me secret things that he didn't tell you. He's given all of us his word. My job is not to ever try to pretend that because of my role that I have some unique authority here. The only thing I really want to be able to do here is to just have the freedom to study and to teach and direct you to what God's word says.
That's it. I have no other authority here. I don't have any secret knowledge. What I have is a Bible and the Holy Spirit, which is what every believer in this room has, which is why the one who speaks better be speaking the words of God.
It's a dangerous thing to influence people's minds about what they believe about God. I'll never forget. It's been a number of years ago now, but a church called me and said that they were having trouble getting Sunday school teachers. And so they were wanting to have this meeting with their church, with everyone who's ever thought about teaching Sunday school.
And they were asking if I would come speak to them to try to encourage the church members to not be so uptight about teaching, to not be so worried about it being such a big deal.
And I said, I'll come speak, but let me tell you what I would say before I do it, because you may not want to invite me. And I said, I'm going to tell your people that however much they think this is serious, it's far more serious than they know.
And the guy said, well, I don't think that's going to help us. And I said, well, let's talk about it. So we talked about it and I ended up going. But their thought was, our church members are taking the role of teaching so seriously that it's a problem. Well, I don't think the answer to that is to diminish the importance of it, because as a teacher, I know sometimes you get frustrated because people don't listen to you.
Let me tell you what ought to keep you awake at night. There are some people who are listening to you. And what you tell them to believe about God, they will believe about God. And you ought to take that very seriously. I'm not your guy. If you want me to come speak to your people and tell you teaching the Bible is just not that big of a deal, don't worry about it.
Whoever speaks, be reminded you're speaking the words of God, which is why we must be tied to the word.
I remember when I was brand new in ministry, my first full-time position was in 94, so 31 years ago. I was 20 and didn't know much at all. Had a heart for the Lord, wanted to serve as church, but I was in charge of this youth ministry. And we were getting ready for our very first Wednesday night youth service. And I didn't have a clue what to do. And all I knew was that if I was going to say anything worthwhile at all, I just needed to teach the Bible. So I would just pick a text and I would just teach through that text. Now, if you would have said to me in 94 something about expository preaching, I would have had no idea what you meant. I didn't know the term. I had no idea what that meant.
If you would have asked me about exegetical work, I wouldn't have known the term. I didn't know what it meant. All I knew was I was 20. I had some in the youth group who were 19. And why in the world would anyone listen to me? The only thing I had to offer was if I was teaching in the Bible. And so I became convinced of teaching the Bible verse by verse, word by word, truly out of desperation.
It would be a little bit later before I even discovered expository preaching is a thing. I didn't even know what it would have meant. I just knew that there's no reason someone should listen to me unless what I'm saying I can show them comes right from the Bible.
That was 31 years ago. Today, I have the exact same conviction.
You shouldn't listen to me because of years of experience. You shouldn't listen to me just because of age. You shouldn't listen to me because of longevity in the church. You shouldn't listen to me because of any degree.
None of that should give you any reason to listen to what I say. The only reason you should listen to what I say is if what I say to you is an explanation of what God has said to us.
Now, I'm actually more convinced of that today at 51 than I was in desperation at 20. So, verse 11, those who speak, remember you're speaking the words of God.
You're speaking for God. So let's make sure we're speaking and explaining His word. Second category, whoever serves as one who serves by the strength that God supplies.
So, when you think of speaking gifts like teaching or exhortation and knowledge or wisdom or serving gifts, administration or service or mercy, giving, those kinds of gifts, we're serving with the strength that God supplies.
This is a reminder that however we serve, whatever we do in the body of Christ, all of it must be done with a complete dependence upon the Lord.
And just to show you that that's not imported to the text, it's right from the text. Go back to verse 7 where he says, Be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers.
Having spiritual gifts never excuses us from being prayerful people. If you're raising children and your children have turned 18 and one has left the house and you have younger children behind them, you've got more experience, you've got more knowledge, that's true, but that experience should never make you less prayerful.
Experience is never to be a substitute for prayerfulness. We are to watch what we think and watch how we behave, verse 7, so that we are faithful in prayer, verse 7, as we love each other, as we show hospitality to each other, verses 8 and 9, and verse 10, we serve each other, and some primarily through speaking and others primarily in service gifts, but all of it is to be done by the strength that God supplies.
Dependence upon Him. This means we're prayerful. This means we're to be humble. This means we also recognize that no matter how gifted you may be or how many years you've used those gifts, if the Holy Spirit does not bless it, there will be no lasting fruit.
We desperately need the work and the power of the Holy Spirit. So let's be very clear that the same text that tells us to be sober-minded, to watch our doctrine, the same text that tells us to be careful that what we know is precise and biblical is the same text that reminds us we need the Holy Spirit's help.
You're never going to study the Bible so much that you no longer need the Spirit. You're never going to serve so long that you no longer need to depend upon prayer. We are to be a prayerful people dependent upon the Holy Spirit as we study and as we serve.
So, how are we to live? Let us be self-controlled and sober-minded. Let us be supremely loving each other. Let us be showing hospitality.
Let us be serving each other. And then fifth, let us be setting our hearts on God's glory. We see this at the end of verse 10 and verse 11.
In order that in everything, God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To Him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.
Let us be setting our hearts on God's glory. That means as you study to teach those of you who are teachers, your motive is not to impress your class or your people.
It's to bring glory to Christ. That means as you serve with your hands, as you make a hospital visit, as you take food to someone who is sick, as you write a card to someone with a prayer need, as you give a financial gift to someone who is struggling, however you serve, the goal is not that they would be impressed by you, but they would be moved to glorify Christ.
In everything that we do. Everything that we do, we want people to see that we are striving for excellence for the sake of the glory of Christ.
And the motive with which we serve makes all the difference with whether or not it's an act of worship. Romans 11, 36, For from Him and through Him and to Him are all things.
To Him be glory forever and ever. Amen. Romans 11, 36 sounds just like 1 Peter 4, 11. That in everything that we do, it's all for His glory.
So when you think about how do we set our hearts on God's glory, let's make sure that's true in our homes. Make sure in your home that you are setting your heart on the glory of God, whether you are living by yourself or with a spouse or with children.
Make sure that you are setting your home on the glory of God. That Christ is glorified in your home.
That His Word is read and believed and obeyed and honored. That the way that you treat each other in your home is a way that would magnify Christ.
That the way that you make decisions about how you spend your time and how you spend your money are not worldly and selfish, but instead are ways that would be honoring to Christ.
Let your home be a place where God is glorified. And certainly let that be true in our church. The most important thing that we could ask ourselves about any Sunday worship service is, was God pleased?
How would we know? Well, did we do what His Word said in a way that brought glory to His Son? That's always the most important question.
Is God pleased? We're to be setting our hearts on God's glory. There is one aspect of that as a church that came up last Sunday night as we were studying through 1 Thessalonians 5.
And ironically, several people, totally different from each other, asked me if there was a way that I could share a small part of that with Sunday morning, just knowing that on Sunday morning we've got our youth with us and our children with us that aren't here on most Sunday evenings.
And I think it ties in exactly with where we are in 1 Peter 4.11. So I want to, at the urging of several church members from last week, I want to bring this to your mind. One of the ways that we can set our hearts on God's glory and not on ourselves is our response when somebody becomes a Christian.
We looked at this last Sunday night and I just want to, I want to share this with you this morning at the request of several people I trust here. When someone prays to receive Christ, if we're not careful, often the first way that we will respond to that would be with things like, I'm so proud of you.
This is great what you've done. What a wonderful decision you've made. What a wonderful thing that you've done. And certainly the heart behind that I trust is to show support and to show love and to celebrate and rejoice with them.
I think the heart and the motive is right. But the problem is when somebody becomes a believer and our first response is I'm so proud of you.
Purposefully or unintentionally, what we are communicating to them is this is something you have done. And it would be good for us to remind ourselves that when somebody comes to faith in Christ, this is not the result of the accomplishment of man.
This is to the praise of the glory and the grace of God. And as I said Sunday night, this isn't just semantics. This is theology and worship.
Who is it that deserves the credit when someone is saved? If you listen to the way people often talk about it, we respond to someone being saved the same way we would respond if they called you as an adult and said, I applied for a promotion and I got it.
And you would say to your son or your grandson, congratulations, you deserve that. You worked so hard for that. Salvation couldn't be anything further from that.
Or when your son calls you and says, I just found out from practice I'm going to be the starting quarterback Friday night. And you say, son, I'm so proud of you.
You deserve that. You've worked so hard for that. Or your daughter comes home and says, I got my report card.
I made straight A's. Honey, I'm so proud of you. You worked so hard for that. And someone calls you and says, I've got good news.
I got saved last night. What do you say? Here's what I think we should say.
That's so great. I praise God that He saved you. I rejoice that God in His kindness has saved your soul.
we have so much to be thankful for. Church, that's not semantics. That's theology.
And that's worship. when your 14-year-old comes home and says, I heard the gospel preached tonight and I gave my life to Jesus Christ.
Rejoice. Celebrate. But this is not what they earned God's favor. Or achieved. Or achieved. Or deserved.
This was God's unmerited favor poured out on them, saving them to the glory of Christ, not the sinner.
So by all means, rejoice with them. Celebrate with them. Praise God with them. Absolutely. But make sure that you do it in a way that shows we are setting our hearts and our minds upon God, not ourselves.
When someone you taught in Sunday school, someone you taught in Awana tells you, I got saved, I'm getting baptized, and you watch them be baptized, celebrate with them.
But as you celebrate with them in their baptism, set your heart on God's glory, I think maybe better than saying, I'm so proud of you.
I think a more biblical, God-honoring response would be, I praise the Lord for His work in your life. And when you see them baptized, you say, I saw your example of obedience, and it makes me want to be obedient to Christ too.
I heard your testimony, and it made me more thankful for who God is and what He's done. Maybe for some hearing that, you say, oh, you're just kind of arguing over words and language.
It's not about words and language. It's about theology and worship. So, in verses 7 to 11, you're praying, you're loving, you're showing hospitality, you're teaching, you're serving, you're doing all those things.
And in verse 11, all the glory goes where? To Christ.
Christ. So, in everything we do as a church, let's be prayerful. Let's be thoughtful.
Let's be loving. And let's use our spiritual gifts. But as we do that, let's remember that every good and perfect gift comes from above.
That while we prepare the horse for battle, victory belongs to the Lord. And that while we love and serve and teach, all the glory, all of it, goes only to Him.
And when we grasp that in our homes, in our churches, we become places of love and joy and service and obedience and faithfulness.
But we never get confused on who receives the credit. It is God, all God, and only God.
So, let us be self-controlled and sober-minded. Let us be loving each other. Let us show hospitality.
Let us serve each other. And let us set our hearts on the glory of God. Our Father, we do thank You today for Your Word.
We pray that You would use it even this day to help us understand the greatness of Your gospel and of Your love. We pray in Christ's name.
Amen. Just a brief moment before you're dismissed. If there's a way that we can help you, if you have a question of how to know Christ as your Savior, a question of how to grow in your knowledge of Him, we want to help you with that.
If guests or member, if you would use that connection card, let us know your question, your need, how we can respond to you to help you. We want to do that. You can drop that in one of the giving boxes on your way out.
Tonight, we have evening service at 5. It's a big night for us. We've got our Passion Youth Choir going to be here to lead us. So 100, 115 of our teenagers here to be leading us in praise.
You'll want to come and be a part of that service. Also, we take the Lord's Supper together at the end of our service as we study through 1 Thessalonians. So we're going to have a wonderful time at 5 o'clock tonight.
Be here to be a part of that. I do want to let you know that our dear friend Dorothy Gatliff, longtime member here this weekend went to be with the Lord. Her service will be here Friday at 1 o'clock.
We'll have more information about that in our newsletter on Tuesday as well. Be praying for that family. And ladies, remember February 25th, just a month from now, four weeks from this Tuesday, is our next ladies' night of theology.
Make sure to mark that down and invite your friends to come and be with you for that. Be back at 5 o'clock tonight if you can. Love you, church family. God bless you. You're dismissed. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord.
Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. Thank you, Lord. For this morning, if you have any questions or the ministries that our church provides, please visit us at fbcmustang.org.
We would love to follow up with you and get to know you better. As always, we try to emphasize, if at all possible, if you could be here physically present with us, we would love that.
And that'd be a joy to serve you in that way. But thank you again for joining us via live stream today. Have a great day. Thank you.
Thank you.