Welcome to the teaching ministry of Grace Fellowship Church in Bradenton, Florida. We welcome you to join our pastor, William Rogers, as he continues his verse-by-verse study in the Word of God. Well, I get to say good morning one more time to you, and I invite you to open up God's Word to 1 Peter. 1 Peter chapter 2. I love these chapter divisions sometimes and the separation between the chapters, especially when they happen like this, the way they do between chapter 1 and chapter 2, because when it happens like this, you're forced to go back and read chapter before it. And what I mean by that is it begins with the word, therefore. And so we're going to take a look at that in the message today. But I want to read this morning 1 Peter 2, verses 1 through 3. Not a long text this morning, but one that's a very powerful and rich text for us this day. The Word of God reads in chapter 2, verse 1, Therefore, putting aside all malice, all guile, all hypocrisy and envy and all slander, like newborn babes long for the pure milk of the word, that by it you may grow in respect to salvation, if indeed you have tasted the kindness of the Lord." When we look at this particular passage, we see so many truths in here. We see some things in here that probably don't catch your attention, but yet you see them as words. One of the things I've done over these last several years is try to teach you to not read superficially, but to actually read and to study and to see what's written in front of us. Because that seems to be one of the hardest challenges in Scripture, is to come at it without a presupposition and to actually be able to read the actual truths that are in front of us. And that's what I see this morning. This morning, I want to paint for you a picture. And when we finish this message today, the picture is only going to have one word on it. And that one word is your encouragement for the entire year. And the problem with that is you've got to wait till the end of the message to figure out what the word is. So I'm going to be painting this picture for you. And I want to do that first by number one, giving you a canvas with a broad stroke of the brush across that canvas. by looking at what I'm calling a key phrase in this particular passage. And I want you to look at this key phrase as we begin in verse 2. It says, like newborn babes, now here's the phrase, long for the pure milk of the word. This key phrase is a genuine spirituality or genuine godliness as far as a characteristic that is always present or should always be present in God's children. We are marked by a love and a delight for God's truth. There is within us a desire for God's truth. There is in us a desire for hearing and seeing His Word. Jesus said, He who is of God, listen to this, hears His Word. It doesn't say might hear it, could hear it, but does hear His Word. Jesus also says in the same chapter, John 8, He says this, He who is a true believer keeps God's Word. So we can already see there are some qualifications, there are some characteristics of believers that Jesus is assuming are absolutely true and relate to all of us. Paul expressed this as he is talking about the heart of believers in Romans 7, verse 22, when he says this, I joyfully concur with the law of God in the inner man. Job says it like this, I have treasured the words of his mouth more than my necessary food. Speaking of the words of God, he sees as more needed than actual food itself. The psalmist says in the first psalm, the godly man will be blessed because his delight is in the law of the Lord. What a tremendous exhortation. But he doesn't stop there, and he even says this, and in his law he meditates day and night. David in Psalm 19 says, The word of God is more desirable than gold, and much fine gold, sweeter than honey, and the drippings of the honeycomb. Now, this is David describing God's Word as it is being received by David. What a tremendous thing to be able to see God's Word as that precious and sweet to our understanding as David saw it. Listen to what Psalm 40, verse 8 says, expressing the cry of the godly. I delight to do thy will, O God. Thy law is written in my heart. We could take probably the rest of the afternoon going through the Scriptures and giving you samples of verses just like these, in which challenge us, they encourage us, and they present before us a love for God's Word that is very natural for us. Listen to what Psalm 119 says. In the very middle of Psalm 119, in the midst of the 176 verses, he says this, O how I love thy law. And again, we can say this. It can be translated as this, O how I love your word. Oh Lord. Oh how I love your word repeatedly in that psalm. The psalmist expresses his delight in the law of God. But I say, I have a simple question today. Is that the cry of your heart this day? Is the cry of your heart, O how I love Your Word. This delight, this love for, this desire for the pure milk of God's Word is a phrase that I hope that by the time we finish this message, you will come to understand. appreciate how Peter is phrasing this. His calling to us in this phrase where he says, long for the pure milk, is actually a command. And we see, if we were to take a look at this in the Greek language, we would see a preposition in front of the word desire. That's a verb. And when you see this in the Greek language, it is intensifying the meaning of that word, which makes this not just a desire, but a compelling desire. And this is what Peter is giving to us as the very first part of this canvas, of this picture, that we are to see as far as the exhortation for this year. He was saying this is a compelling desire. This is what Peter says to us. A compelling desire for God's Word. Is that what is in our heart? Because you see, the more we break this down, the more we see the nature of this longing and this desire for God's Word, and the more intense it is, We do have to ask ourselves the question, is this a description of my heart? Psalm 42.1 is a beautiful picture of this. And it says, as the heart, which is a Hebrew word for deer, as the deer pants after the water brook, so pants my soul. after thee, O God. As the deer pants for the satisfaction of the water, so pants my soul after you." So, as the deer seeks the water for satisfaction of the desire for thirst, God's Word does that for us. We are compared there as that deer. And the Word of God satisfies us. Now, notice it doesn't say which part of God's Word. Is it the Old Testament? Or is it the New Testament? He doesn't separate because it's all God's Word. And it all satisfies. Psalm 119, 174. Your law is my delight. And he uses the same verb as in Psalm 42, 1 to express this longing of our heart is for God to satisfy that longing. It's a very simple thing. And so, He's giving us, as we begin to look at this passage, and we begin to unwrap the meaning of the passage, the very first thing is the canvas and the broad stroke of, long for the pure desire of the Word. And the second is a clarifying of the terms. I want to clarify some terms as we get into this, so that you can understand the weight of this particular passage. We're talking about a longing, a driving, compelling desire, something that is extremely strong and intense, is what Peter is saying. This is commanding for us to have a consuming kind of desire in our heart for Him. For His Word, that is what the consuming desire and the command that He is addressing here, that is to be typical of our heart. That is to be the normal look and the condition of our heart. And you know, we understand passion. We understand craving. We understand desire. We understand these things. We understand what it means to be thirsty. But sometimes we don't understand being thirsty or hungry for God's Word. At least like the way we would be if we were starving or thirsty on a desert with many days without either one, you could really appreciate that passion for water or that passion and desire for food then. And so we look at this and see he's comparing this to an animal. He's comparing this to, we're going to see in just a few minutes, to a baby. And yet, he is at the same time not diminishing the impact of what God's Word does for us. If anything, he is exploiting this and showing us that it becomes explosive in us by creating a more intense desire. It satisfies, but it creates an even more intense desire to be satisfied. And so, this is continual action in the life of a believer that Peter is simply beginning to express here. He says, with all your longings, this is the one that you are to have, with all the desires that come your way, the one desire that needs to be at the very front of everything is this desire. for God's Word. An intense, passionate, overwhelming, insatiable desire for God's Word. And that sounds like, wow, does anybody really have that kind of a desire for God's Word? Can I actually have this kind of a desire for God's Word as I move into this next year? Can that typify my heart? Can that be an example of who I really will be? It is a word that is descriptive here, as he says he defines it, as the pure milk of the Word. Now, pure is an interesting word in order to clarify these terms. Pure is one we would have to clarify. Pure means uncontaminated. It is pure substance in the midst of a corruptible world and desires that are around us. And we are to have an uncorruptible, a pure sense, an uncontaminated desire. for God and His Word. And this is a description of the fact that all the polluted things around that affect our natural desires are to not affect them as far as God's Word. In other words, they don't affect the desire for God's Word. This is desire for the pure, uncontaminated, unmixed with all the other desires. This desire stands alone. This desire stands by itself. This is the purity of the milk. That makes it an interesting thing to look at, because he is saying here in this phrase, long for the pure milk of the Word, this uncontaminated, untouched by anything coming straight as it is from the mother to the baby. Nothing contaminating it along the way. This, remember, is associated with God's Word. So, he is saying we are to have a craving, a desire, a passion for the uncontaminated, untouched Word of God. The pure truth of the Word of God. Not contaminated truth. And what the milk is, Peter calls this, using the analogy of what nourishes an infant. saying this is what nourishes the believer. And so we find this contrast, something of which we are in the middle of, and it belongs to every single one of us as believers. He's actually referencing all believers here. by referring to them as having a longing for the pure milk of God's Word. Now, this word for word, I want you to see this word. It says here, like newborn babies long for the pure milk of the Word. It's an interesting word. It is from another word that we get, logos, but it's in a different form, and it's only used in that form one other time, and it's found in Romans 12, verse 1. And there, it doesn't translate it word at all. It translates it reasonable service. Which is interesting, because you have the word word translated word in Peter, and then you go to Romans and it's translated reasonable service. And it could be confusing to us, especially if we were to ask, what is reasonable service, and how could the translators take a word taken from Logos, which translates word, and call it reasonable service in another part of the Scriptures? Their reasoning is that reasonable service is a rational service, and it would reflect the mind of God. In other words, what we're talking about in Romans is actually a reflection of the very mind of God. And since the mind of God is revealed in Scripture, or His Word, it is therefore rendered Word. In other words, He actually uses reasonable service, but it's properly translated Word, in Peter, and it should be in Romans. But they use an explanation of it in Romans instead of the literal translation. The mind of God is ours in Scripture. Therefore, a reasonable spiritual service would be consistent with translating it that way in Romans, because the mind of God is revealed to us in the Word of God, and it's the Word of God that we're reading and understanding. He has given us an understanding into his thoughts and into his mind by revealing to us his Word. And so it becomes an interesting thing to look at. And you see, well, how does he draw this into chapter 2, verses 1 through 3? Well, I want to show you something. Look back at chapter 1. Look at verse 25. And you'll see the prior chapter, and of course you know that in the original Greek you don't have chapter divisions and you don't have verses laid out like this. This came along later. You see in verse 25 at the end that it says, The word of God, or the word of the Lord, endures forever. This Word that has already touched us, this Word endures forever. Therefore, this Word's same idea is brought into chapter 2, and he's looking at the Word that endures forever is the exact same pure Word, or milk of the Word, that we are to desire. It's going to live forever. Nothing else lives forever. but the word of the Lord which is where I desire should be." And so we see coming from 1 into 2, he's simply expanding his thought of verse 25 by saying, the word of the Lord abides forever. Now, Peter could have launched into this section coming from verse 25. He could have launched this section of the epistle by saying, you need to therefore read the word. But he doesn't say that. He could have said, you need to study the Word. He could have said, you need to meditate on the Word. All of which are in Scripture in other places. But he doesn't do that. He could have even said, think on these things. He could have said, you need to teach the Word, you need to preach the Word, since the Word of the Lord abides forever, or endures forever, which would have been a natural transition from 25 into these other exhortations. And the Scriptures all say this. He could have said, you need to search the Word. You need to hide the Word in your heart. It's a Scripture also challenges us to do. But he didn't say any of these things. He didn't even stress. It is crucial to read. It is crucial to study, to meditate, to search, to study, and to read all of these things. Those are important. But the truth is, he didn't say any of these things. But, before you're going to do any of these things, you're going to have to have a desire for God's Word. You see, that desire must be previous to all the other exhortations that are out there. This is one of the things that's interesting in people coming to me and saying, teach us how to study God's Word. What a difficult thing to do if you don't have a desire to be in God's Word. It's just a difficult thing to do. Now, when I went to seminary, I had a desire to understand God's Word. There were probably a lot of other reasons I went to seminary, none of which I went to have to do all that I had to do. all the writing you have to do, and all the research you have to do, and all of the other information they have to give you, all the Greek and the Hebrew that you have to do. I didn't really go there thinking that I was going to be a professional teacher of God's Word one day, and I'm going to have to teach people how to do these things one day. That was not ever in my mind. I never even thought or had a desire to be a pastor. at that time. I just knew the Lord had called me to ministry. And that's what I was pursuing. So when I went into the seminary, I had a desire to understand the Bible. I get all the way through seminary except the last course I take, and I told you this story, I needed one more A. Got to have one more A. So I began to study and to search through all the electives and I find one called Bible study. I thought, piece of cake. I've had Greek intensives. I've had Hebrew. I've been reading and studying. Piece of cake. I can't wait to get my simple A. And lo and behold, I even get one of my popular professors that I love. He was my advisor. I thought, all right, this is going to be stealing. I'm going to walk away from here just so thrilled. The first few days of that class, that professor taught us that we do not know how to study. In fact, he said, not only do you not know how to study, you don't even know how to read. Now, that's kind of hard for a seminary student to take in his last quarter. It's like, what do you mean? I've come all the way through this school. I know how to read and study." And he spent the whole rest of the semester proving. I didn't have a clue what study was and I certainly didn't know how to read. And so I had to do it all over again. And I look back at that and I see, and y'all know, I mentioned that one class more than any other class I had at Dallas Theological Seminary. How to study the Bible. It changed my life because with the natural desire that God had already given me to understand the Scriptures, now He was giving me tools to use. I've told Carol many times, if I had gone to seminary and had gotten nothing but that one class, it would have been worth all the money. It would have been worth the whole time in seminary to have gotten that one class. And that was a class that gave me the tools to be able to work and to live in the Scripture, because I had a desire to understand the Scripture. And Peter here is taking this one desire that we have, and he's giving us a simple analogy, the analogy of a baby. A baby craves milk. They crave it in a rather serious way. And you know that. They crave it in a very serious way, and it's all they crave. It's all they crave. And the baby craves the milk. We are to crave and passionately crave the Word of God. This is where it all begins, is desire for God's Word. If there's anything I want to say to you this morning, it's this. Do you have that craving for God's Word? Do you really have it? Do you have a real desire for God's Word? And this is at the heartbeat of what Peter is doing. The basic exhortation here, as we look at this canvas, is only one thing on there. desire God's Word. That's it. That's what it's on there for. It is to desire God's Word, and the analogy of the baby is given to emphasize this. It's given to emphasize that desire. As a baby desires something, a baby will demand something. A baby will want something. And you know what it wants. In fact, babies are very interesting. They're very antisocial. Babies are antisocial. In fact, if you'll notice here, he's talking about newborn babies. Brand spanking new babies. No pun on the word spanking. Brand new babies have a craving. They have a desire. They want something. They're not interested in meeting your needs. They're only interested in meeting that one need they have at that time, and that is, feed me. In fact, God even gave them a built-in mechanism to let you know, you better feed me and you better feed me now. A baby is weak. A baby can't do much. You're saying, Pastor, we know all about babies. I know you do. And that's why Peter is telling you this. But babies come with something that is extraordinary to me. And that is they come with a strong set of lungs. It is amazing how they can cry, how they can scream, and you know exactly what it is, that it's going to be a feed me. It's been said that if babies had weapons, they would use them. If a baby could pick up a brick and throw it at you, he would pick up that brick and throw it at you to get your attention to feed him. And this is what Peter is talking about. As he is relating to these newborn babies and that craving for the milk, so are believers to crave that nourishment from God's Word. This is what he's giving us. So, with five other explanations and exhortations he's going to give us, he's drawing upon this. Desire the pure milk of the Word like a baby desires the pure physical milk from the mother. So, the very first thing he gives us there is there is to be in verse 1 of chapter 2, the therefore is there for us. is to draw us back to the verses and telling us to consider our new life in God. We have a new spiritual life, and if we don't consider the new life, we're never going to understand the desire and the longing. and the passion for God's work. He says, look back at this, look at verse 22. Since you have in obedience to the truth purified your souls for a sincere love of the brethren, fervent love for one another from the heart, for you have been born again, not of seed which is perishable, but imperishable. That is through the living and abiding Word of God. You have been given a new life in Christ, and this is because of the Word of God. So the very first thing is we have to consider that we now have a spiritual life within us that is going to actually be desiring This Word of God. The Word that changed us. The Word that endures forever. This Word is now going to be received by the new life that God has given me inside of me. That's what that therefore is there for. And then the second thing He gives us is He says in verse 1, putting aside. Look at what He says in putting aside. Putting aside something. This is telling us that something is in the way. We need to put it aside in order to have a clear focus. So, He gives us what's in our way. What's in our focus, we need to move it aside so that it clears our focus to be able to see that desire, to be able to have that desire of God. And that clear focus is what we're looking at. Laying aside is a participle, and it indicates for us rejecting something in order to do something else. And in this, he is saying there are five things that we need to be able to lay aside. They are all malice, and that very first word there is malice. It's an interesting word, but it's a very general kind of a word. It's a general word for evil. It's just a very simple word given to us to explain evil. He starts in the most, I guess you could say, generic sense. It could be translated actually, baseness or wickedness, by giving us this word, malice. It's not a word that we generally understand, but it means good-for-nothingness. And we are to put that aside. That very first word is important. One lexicon gives it is this phrase, disgracefulness. It refers to the general evil of the heathen world that should not be touching us, that should not be involved in any of our desires. Then the next word he gives us is deceit. Your translation may say guile, and it means deception, or dishonesty, or falsehood, or seduction. These words would be used to describe this. It's just another way of giving us a word for deceit, actually. If something translated guile, and it's used as a description, the word guile is used as a description for fishhook. It's used as a fisher because nothing is more deceptive to a fish than a beautiful hook. Yet it gets him. And so, this is a word, guile, that is given to us, and we translate this as a word that is parallel to deception, malice, because malice comes first, and then you have guile. And so, this is an interesting word. Then he looks at even another word called hypocrisy, and we pretty much know what hypocrisy is. We can relate to that word. It is a word that is given to us to stress to us something that is not real, something that is not genuine. It's a phony or it's a fake. Then he adds envy. Envy is resenting someone else's property or something that someone else does. It's not your situation, therefore you resent it. which leads to grudges and bitterness and hatred or conflict. And then the last thing he gives us is an interesting word in itself. Mayan translates it as slander, and yet it's a word that means all evil speaking. And it is a word used to defame the character of another person. It is a word used to speak unkindly towards another person, to speak despairingly, or it's even used to gossip about someone. And it's referred to here as a wicked or an evil thing. If you're desiring deceptive things, or if you're desiring any of these five things, he is saying, Clear them out, put them aside, so that your focus can be on longing for the desire, pure milk of God's Word. That's really all He's saying there. There is a flow here, and it moves from the first through the last. Each one leading to the other one. And each one is actually stripping us of the privilege of seeing God's real desire being lived out in us. in an unhindered, uncontaminated way, so that we're able to have that desire. So, if you're going to have a desire for the Word, you've got to clear your focus. You've got to clear your mind. And then the third thing he gives us here is look at what it says here in the next verse. Like newborn babies, long for the pure milk of the Word. And we've already been looking at this, but here I want to give you another couple of things that this means. It means, number three, to confess your need. You have to have a consciousness of your new spiritual life, number one. You have to be able to clear your focus. And then number three, you have to be able to confess that you need God's Word. And it's very important in Scripture. You have not arrived. You actually need and will always need the nourishment from God's Word. Just as a baby will need the milk, you will need God's Word. We just need it. And you know, you've had times in your own life where you weren't reading the Word like you should be. And then you get back into God's Word and what do you do? You sense it. Wow, I can't believe I have been So long. In fact, I had a guy tell me one day that he would never leave God's Word. He did leave God's Word, and he came back to it, and he told me in a confession. He said this in my office one day. I have been out of God's Word for two years, being distracted from one thing to another to another, and I'm back. I said, well, what have you missed? He said, I have missed God's were. And you see, that is what we're talking about here. As newborn babies need that milk, how long do you think you could stay in that room or stand it without giving that baby the milk? Well, let me ask you another question. How long could the baby stand it? The baby needs the milk and you will do everything you can to make sure that baby gets the nourishment, won't you? just like us. He is comparing this to us when he says in the very first word of verse 2, like newborn babies. We are like a newborn baby in that we should be desiring God's Word. A newborn baby craves desperately to have that milk. And we are to be in a desperate need for the milk ourselves. And then number four, not only confess your need, you have to have a craving for growth. You actually have to crave your growth. And he says that after the longing for the pure milk of the Word, he says that you may grow by it in respect to salvation. In other words, You needing it and you growing are working together. Your confessing that you need it is your confessing that you have to have it for the growth. You're not saved to just be idle. You're not. You are saved with all kinds of purposes. And one is to glorify God. Two is to be growing in your Christian life. That is what it's all about. The Lord will grow you up. It will make you strong. And you have to realize that number one, I need it. But number two, I crave it. I want the growth. Now, would it be sad if a baby never grew? I think that's always an interesting kind of question because the answer is, of course. Think about this. If we could see ourselves dressed as we really are spiritually, what would we have worn into this church today? What would we be wearing right now? Would we be dressed as a newborn baby? Or would we have been feeding and being nurtured on God's Word, beginning to grow up in Christ? I have said this so often, that growing old in the Lord is different than growing up in the Lord. Growing old in the Lord means I do absolutely nothing. I'm just growing old. But growing up in Christ is diligence. It's study. It's discipline. It is this desiring and this craving for growth. And then look at number 5. Look at the last part of this, verse 3. If you have tasted the kindness of the Lord. Now what this is saying is since This word, if, is not really an if. It's since you have tasted the kindness of the Lord. Peter says, you are to remember that you have your spiritual life. You are to have a clear focus. You are to admit your need of God's Word. And you are to crave growth. But you're also, number five, to count your blessings. You're to count them, because as you survey and as you look around your life, going back to chapter 1, verses 23-25, you begin to see how God's Word has actually changed you. God's Word has actually changed you. This is what we've looked at in our study going through the book of Romans. is actually, through the work of the Holy Spirit, has given you a new nature. Has given you this desire for Him. Since you have tasted that the Lord is gracious. His simple point is take a little time, just simply look back and see if you have actually tasted the goodness of God. If you have actually tasted of the kindness of the Lord. And you shouldn't have to look very far. You see, if you even have to go all the way back to your salvation, you see you did not save yourself. You see that there was a previousness about God in drawing you to Himself that brought about regeneration. You see that. And so, you are seeing the goodness, you are seeing the kindness of God. You actually have tasted that the Lord is gracious. And the word literally means good, kind, and gracious. It has all three meanings. When you look at what it says here, you have tasted the kindness of the Lord. It can be translated goodness or kindness about who He is. You've had a myriad of unanswered prayers. Each one of these is a demonstration of the kindness and the goodness of God. Each one of them, as you look at how God has worked in people here, as God has worked in your friends, as God has worked in your life or your spouse or your children, you are tasting at those times the goodness and the kindness of God. And so, He is simply giving this to us in a palatable way by saying, if these five things are present in your life, you will do them. You will do them if you have a consciousness of a new life in Christ. If you have a clear focus, you're able to put those evil desires aside. You can confess you need God's Word, that you haven't arrived yet, that you're still in the sanctifying process. And if you crave the growth that God's Word permits you to have, and you're able to count the blessings, then you will be able to do this. You will have that desire in you that is cultivated by God's Word. You see, these cultivate more of a desire. that only His Word can satisfy. And so as this canvas is brought to our forefront, at least in my mind, I see this canvas with a stroke across here that says, desire or long for the pure milk of the Word. As a baby desires nutrition, we desire nutrition. And then these five points listed here, as being conscious of your new life, putting aside the filthiness, clearing up your focus, confessing your need, craving the growth, and counting the blessings, would bring us to one word. One simple word. And that word would be... Well, we're out of time. I'll have to give it to you next week. That one word would be simple. Eat. E-A-T. That is the prescription for malnutrition. That is the prescription for desiring God's Word. You have to eat. That is the way he's actually looking at this whole passage. He's actually saying this in totality of all these verses. Eat. Read. Get into God's Word. Don't worry about, for example, that you don't have that craving, desire. Eat. Get in God's Word and read it. Have you ever had seasons in your life where you just don't seem to be getting anything out of God's Word? It just might seem to be dull or dry or slow or I don't feel like doing it. Do it anyway. As you go into this new year, don't let this be just a resolution that's unfulfilled. Have as your prayer, I pray that I might know you and the power of your resurrection being conformed to your death. And you're going to be that if you desire His work. Lord, give me that desire. As I read the Word, encourage my heart. Strengthen my heart. Bless the reading by giving me understanding. The greatest privilege I think in all the world for a person to have would be a believer to have at his fingertips the words of our God, the Creator of the universe, who has written down and given us a look at His sovereign will as being revealed in Scripture, and all we have to do is ask Him to explain it and give it to us. What a privilege! We can go to the author and we can believe in our heart that when the Bible speaks, God speaks. So when we're reading His Word, we're looking at what God says. When we have a desire to read His Word, we are desiring what God says. Not Peter. Not Paul. God through Peter or Paul. What a privilege we can have. May this year be filled with exhortation and blessings. When you get to this point next year, looking back on all the blessings God's given you, because you did one thing. You began to eat on a regular basis. A baby has to have that regular feeding. As some of you with babies know, We have a little baby in our house, and that baby lets us know very loud and persistent. Some of you may not know me, and you don't know what baby I'm talking about. I'm talking about our little four-legged baby that speaks loudly, but she has to eat. I know you would look at her and think, no, she doesn't. But she has to eat. Don't think you're any different. Spiritually speaking. Remember the first thing. Your spiritual life must be there. And then you eat. Let's pray. You have been listening to the teaching ministry of Grace Fellowship Church in Bradenton, Florida with Pastor William Rogers. We invite you to join us every Sunday for the equipping hour at 9.30 a.m. followed by worship at 10.45. We are located at the corner of Manatee Avenue East and 9th Street East on the second floor of the historic Manatee Central Banquet Hall. We pray that you will join us again next Sunday as we continue to teach God's Word one verse at a time.