Praise the Lord for our great Creator and our great God, isn't it? All right, Frank. Come on, my friend. We love when our people from our church come and read the scriptures. Today is Frank's turn. Colossians chapter 1 in verse 3. In your Bibles, if you have a Bible, Colossians chapter 1 in verse 3. We give thanks to God and the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, praying always for you, since we heard of your faith in Jesus Christ and of the love which ye have to all the saints for the hope which is laid up for you in heaven whereof ye heard before in the word of the truth of the gospel. which is come upon you as it is in all the world, and bringeth forth fruit as it also in you, since the day ye heard of it and knew the grace of God in truth. Heavenly Father, thank you, Lord, for your words that teaches us to live this wonderful Christian life. Thank you, Lord, for our salvation. Thank you, Lord, for this church. Thank you, Lord, for this people. And help us, Lord, to serve you better tomorrow than we're doing today. And, Lord, if there's someone here that don't know you as Lord and Savior, or even online, Lord, may they open their hearts to you today. In Jesus' name, I pray. Amen. You may be seated. I'll sing the life of Christ for next week. I feel like bumped up and I'm missing half of the song. But anyway, okay, Colossians 1 3 tonight. Today is our anniversary Sunday. And you know what the title of the message is? Thank you, Lord. That's what it is. Thank you, Lord. This is not thank you to me. You know one thing I don't like? I don't like when people say, Pastor Barbosa's church. Oh, your church. This is not my church. You follow me? I hope that if I go to heaven tomorrow, you know, I don't want to go to heaven tomorrow yet, you know, but if I go to heaven tomorrow, you guys keep on going. This is our church. This is our church family. And I'm like, oh, that's your church. I know what people say, but I just don't like that. This is our church. We serve the Lord together here. I just happen to be the one who does the preaching. But you know what? It's OK. You know, but you do these other things that I don't do. This is our church together. It's like your body, you know, you have the toes, the fingers, you have your hair, your ears, your nose, you know, everything does different things, but they all function for one thing, the body. Same thing. All right. So Colossians, we give thanks to God and the father of our Lord Jesus Christ praying always for you. You know, what should we, one thing we should do in this church, pray for one another. We're not to pray for one another. You know, today you hurt, tomorrow I hurt. Today you cry, tomorrow I cry. Today you laugh, today I laugh with you. You know, that's the way the body is. You know, we care for one another. We love one another. By the way, we leave our kids here today, you know, so this is a special service. And we want the kids to be part of this. So I want to start this message with all of us just giving thanks to the Lord. To God be the glory. Now, thankfulness is expressed always from a heart full of gratitude. Thankfulness is the expression that comes from the heart of a person which appreciates the goodness that he or she has received. For an example, if it's like if I come to you and say I bring you a gift, more than likely you're going to say thank you, right? More than likely, anybody would say, oh, thank you. That means I'm grateful. I don't really deserve it, but thank you. Whatever is the occasion, you know, thank you. Most people say that, you know? I mean, you know, we used to, you know, give to our kids, like, make sure they say thank you. You know, we teach the kids, thank you, Daddy. Thank you, Mom. You know, we have to say thank you. You know what? We have to say thank you to the Lord very often. Lord, thank you for your guidance. Thank you for this food. Thank you for this friend. Thank you for my church. Thank you for the people that go there. We should express gratefulness. Thank you for Nora. She was like, what did I do? Okay, thank you for Nora. But it comes from a heart of gratitude. Now, how often did you say, thank you, Lord, for my salvation? Thank you, Lord, that Jesus shed his blood on the cross for me, that I don't have to go through that. Thank you, Lord, that I don't have to face the judge of the earth, but I just go home to be with my heavenly father. Thank you, Lord, for my sisters. Thank you, Lord, for my brothers in Christ. Thank you, Lord, for the church family that I have. Isn't that great? But it always comes from a heart of gratitude. Look at 2 Corinthians 2 verse 14. Now thanks be to God. which always cause us to triumph in Christ and make it manifest the Savior and all of his knowledge by us in every place for we are in verse 15 says for we are unto God a sweet Savior of Christ and then we are saved and in them that and I'm sorry and in them that perish the Bible says that we are a sweet Savior to the Lord. I'll tell you what when God sees us. He blesses his heart. I think he goes like this Oh look look at my child. Oh Look at Nora. Oh Look, look, look God God is pleased with us and when we come together to his house and we worship him It blesses his heart. It's like in the Old Testament when they use the burnt offerings and the smoke will go up and the Bible says they went to the oysters of God and God smelled and God was pleased with their sacrifice. We do the sacrifice of grace and praise. And you know what? Everything we do here is for the audience of one. Listen, don't come to church to be entertained. Don't come to church and say, oh, see what the pastor is going to tell me today. No, it's for the glory of the Lord, to God be the glory. We're celebrating Him today. It's because of Him that we're here. Okay? So. Today we are here to celebrate the goodness of God and this celebration is for all of us. We are to celebrate the goodness of God to us and the church and the goodness of God in the church, in the local church as well. If you're not a Christian here today, listen to me well, if you're not a Christian online today, then give your life to Jesus. I said, listen, why you are so silly to say, I'll do it tomorrow. You know the Bible says, Today is the appointed time. Today is the day of salvation. He said, Pastor, why? Because you and I don't have guarantee of tomorrow. Listen, life insurance is not for the ones who died. It's for the ones who are left behind. So we make sure they're okay when we leave the scene. Listen, you and I don't have no guarantee of tomorrow. Let me give you an example. Yesterday I was, I cheated a little bit. I have to taste the food yesterday. So I went and got the food and I'm in a little boat, but got in my car and I'm driving. I almost went to see Jesus yesterday. At least I thought I was. And what happened? I was eating and I got choked on a piece, a little piece of rice. And let me tell you, that thing just, my voice went away. I got red and purple and I'm driving the car. Listen, we have no, I could have went to see Jesus yesterday. We have no guarantee of tomorrow. so we praise the lord today so if you're not a christian here today don't wait till tomorrow do it today do business with god listen do you want to go to heaven or do you want to go to hell there's no other way i said what listen you want to go to heaven you need jesus because without jesus you're not going you're not going there You know what Jesus said? I am the way, the truth and the life. No man come to the Father but by me. He is the bridge that leads us from here into eternity in heaven with God. Otherwise, listen, oh, I'm sorry, Pastor. My grandfather went to church. My grandmother went to church. My great-grandmother, my mom and dad, they all baptized. They went to church. You know what? It means quite nothing to God. Without Jesus, there's no heaven. Without Jesus, no forgiveness of sin. Without Jesus, you will die. And unfortunately, you go to hell. And by the way, the Bible is full of people with great intentions. I mean, hell is full of people with great intentions. They have all the grace in heaven. They did so much for humanity. And he said, Pastor, and he's going, without Jesus, that's where they're going, unfortunately. And Jesus spoke about that. But that's not our message this morning. Today, we're here to give thanks to our God, to worship him in spirit and in truth, so that they let us, with one voice, express thankfulness to our God. Thankfulness for what he has done in the past, thankfulness for what he is doing in the present, and thankfulness for what he is going to do in the future. May we never forget that war of this because of the mighty hand of God and praise the Lord for that you are part of the celebration today. Now, this is not a sad time for East Bay Baptist Church because celebrations is always a happy time. Right? Is it or is it not? Celebration is always a happy time. You celebrate something, you know, good. You celebrate your birthday. That's good. Some people go, ladies go, I'm always 35. You know, listen, it doesn't matter if you always want to be 35. It's still your birthday. it's still a celebration don't you like when people go happy birthday oh yeah when they see happy birthday with the gift you know I'm just kidding but you know it brings a smile you know you celebrate lunch or breakfast you know what you want to see people smile put the play the fruit in their hands put a plate of food in their hands what are you having their food So happy birthday to East Bay Baptist Church. Look what the Bible says in Psalm 92 verse 1. It is a good thing to give thanks unto God, unto the Lord, and to sing praises unto thy name, O Most High. So God says it is a good thing that we as his children express thankfulness for him. Listen, November is a what we call Thanksgiving month. It should be Thanksgiving every day. You should be the most grateful, thankful people in the face of the earth. You just don't know what I'm going through. You don't know. I don't know much to be thankful for. Yeah, you're still alive. Thank the Lord for it. You still have food. You ate this morning. Thank you, Lord. You got a place to sleep. Thank you, Lord. Whatever you sleep. You know what? We have so much to be grateful for. Okay, let's look at this thank you, Lord, from several points this morning, okay? And I'm going to finish this thing time and fashion. Number one, if you want to follow the outline, thank you, Lord, for the preparation. We're talking about East Bay Baptist Church. Thankfulness is a prominent theme in the Bible. And we as God's people should be thankful people. This is a time on which we give thanks, the glory to God and thanks to him for what he has done. So the Bible have these words about gratitude. Look what it says. Rejoice evermore. pray without ceasing in everything give thanks for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus look what it says concerning you in everything give thanks wow imagine that God says in everything give thanks that means complaining should be out of our vocabulary oh pastor that's a hard one yes it is because we are professional complainers. Right? Right, John? I'm just kidding with you. John is a joyful soul, okay? I just got his attention. Did you catch it, John? Give thanks in all circumstances. You know, one of the characteristics of the wicked of this world and most people is ungratefulness. We should be thankful because God is worthy of our thanksgiving. You know, it's unfortunate that in many homes on Thanksgiving Day, you know what that is? Arguments and football. That shouldn't be in our home, should be gratefulness. Thank you, Lord. Remember, Thanksgiving started with what? People giving thanks to God for what he had done. Okay, so. I thank God for the preparation. Listen, I'm not going to preach about myself and boast about myself, but let me tell you, when I got saved, the Lord impressed my heart to be a preacher, and I didn't want to be a preacher, especially when I had a person in the church that said to me, out of the blue, I would never listen to somebody that has an accent. I never told this man that the Lord was leaning me to be a preacher. And I tell you what, that discouraged me. You're talking about giving years and say, Lord, you know, I'm not the person you want for this. So I try to say I was going to do something for the Lord. I want to be a missionary to Portugal because I speak their language. I know the culture. They're cold about it. I'm going to South and Central America. I speak Spanish, so I'll be OK, too. The culture is very similar. You see what I was doing? I wanted a place where it's easy. And God said, America needs missionaries. America needs missionaries. But I said, Lord, this is a battle that was in my mind, Lord. I have an accent. He's going to listen to me anyway. Look at this guy, what he said, I hold on death for several years. But the thought never went out of my heart. And one day talking with Pastor Cripe was my pastor at the time. I talked to him and he looked at me and said, Tony. Never compare yourself that you help me tremendously said never compare yourself to anybody you want, which you are by the grace of God and God will use you the way you are. With those words, I went to college. That man called me every day, almost every day. He used to remind me, take one day at a time. OK, this is what I did. I work a full-time job, work a part-time job. I went to college all in the same time. I did this for 4 and 1 1⁄2 years, preparation. You need to prepare yourself, right? So I used to drive to Connecticut for 1 hour and 40 minutes after work. Took my daughter with me so I wouldn't fall asleep at the wheel. After school, drive back home, got home about one in the morning, 12.30, one in the morning, sometimes two in the morning, took a nap and went to work. And did the same thing Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday I went to church, Thursday and Friday, four days a week, four and a half years. One thing that I praise the Lord, don't cool me off. Lord, don't take the vision from me because some days were very discouraging. Actually, the first day of school, I went by myself. My wife listened to me all the way home complaining why I was going to quit first day of school. Right? She remembers. But the Lord got me through four and a half years. Preparation. I was about to graduate. I was diagnosed with cancer. I told the Lord, Lord, why cancer? I was about to go for you right now and you give me cancer. Was I disappointed? Yes. You know what the Lord taught me? Trust me and I'll put you there in the right time. Because I had my dates. I'm a very organized person. I had my dates. People are dying. I got to go there. You know what? God slowed me down and helped me to understand you need patience. You know, one of my weakness things is patience. I can be a very impatient person. And the Lord always puts obstacles in front of me to help me to be patient. So when the Lord took the cancer away from me and I said, Lord, I can go now. daddy's payback to stitch was born what a blessing preparation was there hard yes but the commitment was there for the Lord don't give me glory give glory to the Lord to help God be the glory number two okay the preparation number two thank you Lord for the vision thank you Lord for the vision you know what here was my vision Sometimes we need to listen God's people. There was a man in our church He keep coming to me when I was in because is I want nothing to do with church planting When I was in car, I would not you know what I wanted to just get somebody to get me to a good church full of people May I be the pastor and you know, I'll be good quit my job. I'll be fine It was pastor Townsley It was Brother McKeever, Mrs. McKeever, and people in my church keep going, you're going to be a church planter? You're going to be a church planter? You're going to be a church planter? No, I'm not going to be a church planter, until they sit me down in a church planter's class for a whole year. Praise the Lord. Brother, oh, he's in heaven with the Lord today. Aspray, Pastor Aspray, will come to me and say, Brother Barbosa, you're going to East Providence, right? So why do I have to go to his providence? I know you're going to his providence. Every Wednesday night and Sunday night you come to me and told me that. So I began to come to his providence. The Lord gave me a heart for his providence. People say pastors go to New England to die because nobody believes in God anymore in New England. That is not true. The Lord put me here and I love to preach to you. The vision, you know, we got to have a vision. The Bible says without vision, what? The people perish. We got to have a vision. I hope you have a vision for your own life as well. You got to have a vision for life. The Bible says in Proverbs 29, 18, where there's no vision, the people perish. But he that keepeth the Lord happy is he. Listen, if we have a vision, we are happy people. You get up in the morning, what are you going to do? I don't know. What are you doing? Gotta have a vision for the day. Gotta have a vision for life. Number three. Thank you Lord for the people. Luke 16 Philippians chapter 1 verse 3. I thank my God upon every remembrance of you. I think about Paul is in prison he remembers the churches he writes the Philippians he says I praise the Lord I thank the Lord for you he remembers every person in the church I'll tell you what I praise the Lord for the people of the past they were here many people in the past that were here many souls that came to this place you know what some of them are already in heaven today great stones for the day great things for the lord praise the lord to those who were here and moved to other ministries i praise the lord for them they were here for a season they did great things for god but i praise the lord for you you're here today you're serving the lord today so we have to thank the lord for those who are around us those who are in the local church we have to praise i praise the lord for those who the lord will bring tomorrow Thank you, Lord, for what you do in the local church. Today, we celebrate the life of East Bay Baptist Church. We celebrate the people of East Bay Baptist Church. We celebrate the goodness of our God. God is good. Listen, it don't matter where we are in life. Think about God is good. Even out of evil, he comes, always comes out goodness from our God. God is a good God. I'll tell you what. Do we have challenge here? Yes, we have. I have times I thought I was the fireman with the hose. But in the midst of that there's always goodness. God is good. Oh you've been a blessing to me. I hope I've been a blessing to you. Okay number four. Thank you Lord for the years. Look what it says in Proverbs 18, 49. Therefore, will I give thanks unto thee, O Lord, among the heathen, and sing praise unto thy name. Years are important. They are so important, actually, we have a calendar year, don't we? And months and days. Folks, we have to consider each year as a blessing from the Lord. It is by the Lord's grace that we are not consumed, of course, and it's by the Lord's grace that this church keeps on going. Is everything wonderful all the time? No. Is there fires? Yes. Is there discouragement? Sometimes. But we should never dwell on the negative, but on the positive. Listen, if you're a person that dwells on the negative, get out of it. Shake out of it. You know why? Because you're only hurting yourself. You ever see Eeyore? You ever see Winnie the Pooh? I watched the show one time that I never forgot. He fell in the river. And his neck is up. And there's a big waterfall. And he goes, oh, well, there's nothing I can do. I'm going to fall down. And I don't know what's going to happen. Or swim to the shore. That's a positive way, right? I mean, what happened if you fall in the river and you used to know that? What would you do? You'd be like the cartoon, out of the water, right? You want to get out of there as fast as you can. No, listen, people focus on the negative all the time. Listen, when we focus on the negative, worry comes in. All right? Anxiety comes in. All kinds of negative thoughts come in. You know why? Who are we hurting? Ourselves. Focus on the positive. Listen, these problems, these issues, listen, I don't focus on that. We move forward. Thanking the Lord, praising the Lord, focus on the positive. That's what we gotta do. You say, Pastor, you never have problems. Do you want them? I can give them to you if you want. Everybody have problems. Don't be consumed with them. God is still on the throne. Be on the positive side. We can learn from past mistakes. We can learn the Lord is good. We can rely on his blessings, on his guidance. We can thank the Lord for what he had done in the past and what he's going to do in the future. Somebody said to me, Pastor, we have a lot of empty seats in the church. Okay. What are we going to do about it? We pray. listen you can't go like oh yeah oh it's not good oh that's not how we can use the empty seats as a means for prayer lord fill those seats you can do it lord and positively believing with faith trusting him that he's going to do it Grab a seat. You don't adopt a seat. You don't adopt a spot in the highways and in the roads. Adopt a seat. Companies do that. They adopt it. They clean that spot. Oh, adopt a seat. And say, this seat is mine. Lord, I'm going to pray for the seat to be full. There you go. Positive thinking, isn't it? OK. Let me put it this way. The power of positive thinking. If you're negative thinking and you're about to take a trip in an airplane, Where do you think you're going? This bird is not going up. That's why people don't like to fly. They're afraid the thing is going to fall. You just go to heaven faster, that's all. Right? Positive thinking is you sit in the plane and you trust the pilot. You're like, you know, I don't know how to fly this thing, but he knows. All right. Number four, thank you, Lord, for today. Thank you, Lord, for today. Look what it says in Proverbs 35, 18. I give thanks to thee in the great congregation. I will praise thee among much people. It is wonderful to look at the past and to remember the good things that the Lord has done, the sweet memories of friends and people who came through this ministry. It's wonderful. It is forever in the history of our church for the people that came through here. But we don't live in the past, do we? We live in the present. We live today. Someone said these words to me one time that I never forgot. Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow we don't know. Today is the day. This is the moment. This is the day. So today we say thank you, Lord, for all the people that make this church. Thank you, Lord, for all the ministries we have. Thank you, Lord, for all the people we are reaching. Thank you, Lord, that you're so good to us. Thank you, Lord, for your love, your mercy, your compassion. Thank you, Lord, for your forgiveness. Thank you, Lord, for today, because today we are celebrating you, Lord. And thank you, Lord, for your goodness of today. And Lord, and we love you and we're going to worship you. Number six, thank you Lord for the future. Do you look at the future? I hope you do because give us hope. If you don't look at the future, you look at only today, it's not that good. We have to look to the future. We have to look to tomorrow. we might not have a make it there but it's good to look to the future you look for the like what is the thing that we should look in the future that we know should put a smile on our in our faces our blessed hope is coming his name is Jesus isn't that great to look at the future Jesus is coming you know one thing in that is good to look in the future too John you're gonna get old and gray Not me. Black here the whole time. I'm just kidding. Folks, it's good to remember yesterdays. Listen, yesterdays is full of history. Here's one thing we need to do about yesterdays. We need to learn from our past mistakes. Because I'm going to tell you, me personally, I've done everything right in this place. No. If I don't make mistakes, yes. These things, if I even could go back and refix it, but I can't go back. So we learn from yesterday so we can do it today and apply it in the future. Okay, so it is good to look at yesterday. It's good. Listen, when I talk about people that been here and the Lord led them somewhere or even people that went to heaven, it brings a smile to my heart. They were a blessing to me. There's many people that were here, they were blessing to me. It meant a blessing to us. And you remember, they were joy and gratitude and say, thank you, Lord, they were here at one time. Thank you, Lord, for what they have done. I remember years ago, I was, listen, we build this place. It was tiring. We came here Monday, Tuesday, and I know you were not there. Most of you were not there. That's not what I'm referring to. Okay, but we're here Monday, Tuesday. We went to church on Wednesday. We came here Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. We don't want to build this place. And I believe you, the last thing that we have left was the bathroom, the ladies' bathroom. I was totally exhausted. The Lord brings somebody to fix the bathroom. He did. That family was here for a little season to fix the bathroom. you can ladies when you go to the bathroom I didn't do it the Lord wants somebody to do it God is so good see we rejoice him today in the present what he's doing and what he's going to do tomorrow we don't know what the future holds but we know that God the God who holds the future let me repeat that we don't know what the future holds but we know that God who holds the future He gives us this promise that we would we never be alone. You're never alone. And and that he is going to be always with us. So God is with us today and tomorrow. He's going to be with us as well. He's a great God, isn't it? So what is in the future as the future for East Bay Baptist Church? What is the future? One thing I'm going to guarantee you that we will do. if i'm the pastor here okay and if i'm not got somebody that thinks the same way i do okay we will go on trusting the lord for his guidance in the life of this church we will honor his name we will obey the bible his word that's where we put our faith we preach from the bible we will continue to boldly proclaim his word listen i don't care if facebook shut me down i don't care any social media shut me down i'm going to proclaim god's word That's what he called me for in season out of season to proclaim his word. The Bible says all the people say the Bible is an old book. I don't care what you call it. It's God's word and I believe it. How long we're going to do that as long as he allows us to do it or until Jesus comes. Maybe I should preach until Jesus comes. He's coming. So what else are we going to do in the future? We're going to reach the lost. We're going to serve together. We're going to praise the name of our God in this local church. Get this, let's look to the future with anticipation because you know, serving the Lord is exciting. Listen, it's not what I've done for the Lord yesterday. I praise the Lord that you did it. It's what we're doing today and what we plan to do tomorrow. Get on board. let's do it pastor you're going on visitation i'm with you pastor we're going to do this activity i'm with you by myself i do what i can you know that's what we do in the local listen why do we think you think that god put us in a local church so we can go like this that's what my grandmother used to do no so we can serve the lord together This is why the local churches so we can serve so listen When the world looks at our church, he sees a beacon of light like a lighthouse What lighthouses are for? To guide you right so you don't crash into rocks What is the church is for so people see the need for Jesus? And his salvation so people can grow and and and praise his name in a local church Okay, number seven almost done Thank you, Lord, for your salvation. Because as in Psalm 106 verse 1, Praise ye the Lord, O give thanks unto the Lord, for he is good, and his mercy endureth forever. And Psalm 106 verse 2 says, you can honor the mighty acts of the Lord. You can show forth all his praise. Folks, I can't close this message without mentioning salvation. I believe that all of us here are thankful for our wonderful salvation. You know why we know each other? Because of Jesus. If I didn't know Jesus, you didn't know Jesus, you probably never met me in the first place. Isn't that true? The reason that brought us all together is Jesus. I got saved, you got saved, and God put us together in a local church. That's it. Imagine if I would never receive Jesus as my Savior. Probably you would never met me. See, we are grateful for our salvation. Why? Because now we belong to the family of God. God become my Heavenly Father and by the way, you don't lose your salvation. All right, you don't lose it. When you're a child of God, you are His for all eternity. The Bible says you are plugged, you are sealed in God's hand. Nobody's going to take you away from there. You might live disobediently to the Lord, but not in your salvation. Salvation is a one-time deal. So, if you're not saved yet today, why not receive Jesus as your Savior? Salvation is an act, letter A, is an act of God's mercy and grace. Listen, I don't deserve to be saved. I don't deserve to go to God's heaven, not my heaven. His heaven is by His mercy and His grace. So what is mercy? Mercy is God giving you what you don't deserve. mercy. What is grace? What is grace? It's the opposite of what I just said. See, mercy is God's giving you what you... God not giving you what you deserve. And grace is God giving you what you don't deserve. We don't deserve salvation, but God give us by grace. We don't deserve God's mercy, but God is merciful to us. mercy wonderful thing now let it be salvation is in Jesus alone okay in this place look what it says in Acts chapter 4 this is the bible verse 4 verse 12 chapter 4 verse 12 says neither is this salvation in any other for there's no other name on the heaven given among men whereby we must be saved saved from what from your sin Sin is the worst disease into all humanity because it's taking people by the millions. What happened to say, listen, there is a physician, his name is Jesus and he specialized on taking sin from people. Listen, listen, if you have, if you have cancer, where you go? Oncologist. Why are you going to an oncologist? Because he specialized in cancer. All right. If you have some types of diseases, your family doctor said, you need to go to this doctor or that doctor. Why? Because he doesn't know how to treat you. So he sends you to a specialist. Well, Jesus is specialized on cancer, I'm sorry, on sin. You know what? All of us have that disease. And that disease is killing every single one of us. And Jesus said, you don't have to die this way. I have the cure for it. It is free. You don't have to have health care. Some people don't have health care because they can't afford it. Jesus said, I'll give it to you free. You don't need to pay a dime. I'll give you the whole cure for it. You know what you need to do? By faith. Ask him to forgive you of all your wrongs, your lies, your gossips, your stealing, all that things, all sin. Repent of it. and ask Jesus to forgive you and welcome him into your heart. He says, is that easy? Yes. So he's a little kid like Nora can understand. Right, Nora? Yes. OK. So salvation is in Jesus alone. Salvation is not in membership in the churches. Salvation is not by some baptism. Salvation is not because you were born and somebody sprinkled water on you. Oh, I'm going to heaven because I got sprinkled. The Bible doesn't teach such a thing. The Bible says salvation is in Jesus alone, by faith alone. That's how it is. Number eight, almost done. Thank you, Lord, for your hope. We live in a hopeless world. Do you agree with me? And people right now are fighting tooth and nail is going to be the president. Because the hope is in the White House. You know, whoever goes to that White House needs prayer. I don't care what party is going in there. They need prayer. They're human beings just like we are. They make mistakes. By the way, don't ask me what party I belong to because I am totally free and independent. I don't affiliate with anybody. All right? But you know what? They need prayer. But people put their hopes in that. They put their hopes in their jobs. They put their hopes in their money they have in the bank. They put their hopes in their wealth. Listen, our hope should be in Jesus and Him alone. Because ultimately, when you depart from this world, everything that you have stays behind for somebody else. We're just stewards of what God's given us. Let me tell you, there was a lady that said, when I die, I want to be buried in my Cadillac. Why the Cadillacs? Because I want to drive in the streets of heaven with my Cadillac. The Cadillac went to the grave with her. And they actually unburied the Cadillac and still there in the grave. Listen, you came with nothing and you leave with nothing. You know, but you can't leave with Jesus. Thank you, Lord, for our hope. We have, listen, we have hope in Jesus. If you're a Christian, you have the greatest hope, better than anything else. Oh, I hope that, listen, our hope is in Jesus. He is our Savior. He is our King. He is our Redeemer. He is our God. You know what? He have great hope. He's promising you and me a new heaven and a new earth. That's hope. He gave me salvation. That's hope. He's coming again. That's hope. He gave me a local church. That's hopeful. You know what? Here's what I can work for him, serve him, encourage my brothers and sisters. I'll tell you what, some people think I'm going to church. What's in the church? You're missing out the whole thing. Oh, I used to go to church, but I got bored. I was like, well, you were sleeping in a church. Taking a nap. Listen, church should be an exciting place to go. Church should be a place on what? Yes, I'm here Lord. Yes Lord, I'm going to serve you. Yes Lord, I'm going to sing. Like yeah, I sing half of the song. Did I put the tail between my legs and said, oh poor me? No, just keep going. God takes the glory so thank you Lord for your hope he got you know what God came comes in letter a he comes and brings living hope you know the world offers you that hope you see I'm telling you the world offers you that hope but in God we have living hope wow Look what it says in Peter 1.3 it says, Blessed be God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, which according to His abundant grace hath begotten us again into a lively hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead. I'll tell you what, we serve a living Savior. That's what we do. So our hope is in Jesus. It's a song that I love a lot. I'm going to sing that song one of these days. My hope is in Jesus. Oh, let it be the hope of your coming. All right. It's a living hope is a hope that is coming. Our blessed hope is coming again. You know what? So pastor, we grateful for that. What are we going to do until Jesus comes? What are we going to do until Jesus comes? We're going to serve him. We're going to sing. We're going to reach the lost. We're going to pray. We're going to praise him. And then what? We're going to keep going. I don't care if it's two or three, if it's 100, 200. We're going to keep going. What else am I going to do? Go home and watch TV? The TV is going to watch me because I get bored very easy. The hope of your coming. Jesus is coming again. I conclude with this. We have so much to be thankful to the Lord today, don't we? I am grateful for you. I already am. Chrissy, I'm grateful for you. Robert, I'm grateful for you. Everybody else here. Eric, Brandon, Brother Tom, everybody. I'm sorry, I don't want to miss names, but I'm grateful for you. You were a great blessing to me. I hope I'm a blessing to you. Let's serve the Lord together. Let's make a difference for God. Listen, we were born for such a time as this. We were not born yesterday. This is our time to give glory to God. Today is our time because we don't know if we have tomorrow. We didn't live in the past. We live in today. This is our generation. This is our time to praise Him. Let's praise Him together in local churches. Listen, Local church should never be a boring place to go. It should be an exciting place to go. I mean, you come to this place, we do things all the time. You know why I just entertain people? It's because we believe in Him. I believe in Him and I want you to see and people that come here to understand that, you know, because we Christians, we're not boring people. I have people in my job that said to me, you guys must be really boring people. I want you to come and see. Why don't you come and see if it's that boring? I don't know, you're more boring than you think you are, you know. I got to put up with you every day in the workplace. No, I'm just kidding, you know. But anyway, let's close this thing up. Praise the Lord for this ministry. and for the eight years that the Lord has allowed us to minister to the people in this area. I praise the Lord for you, I praise the Lord for this place, and to God be the glory for all the things He has done. Listen, this is not about me, okay? This is not about me, I'm just a servant of the Lord. I remember the first day that His Babe Aptos Church was born, they said, so where is your goals? As you go to East Providence, I said, I'm going there as a servant of God to serve Him the way He wants me to serve Him. That's it. If He takes me out of pastoral ministry tomorrow, I'll sit in the pew and serve Him the same way, the same intensity, the same enthusiasm, because I believe that I serve a living God. So praise the Lord for this ministry. Praise the Lord for His goodness. the glory. Thank you. If you could stand please. We're going to have a song of invitation. And then we, here's what we're going to do. We have a gift for you. and before you leave make sure that you get your gift and we're going to do right after I pray and we sing the whole we finish the whole thing and we have lunch after you get your your shirt just get there in the hallway and pick up your food and have fellowship with us okay all right let's sing what is it Chrissy 490 Take my life and let it be. May it be our prayer this morning as we sing, take my life and let it be. Lord, it's my life. I want to serve you. There's a local church for you to serve right here. Here we are. We're a Bible-believing church. We rely on the Bible. Everything we do is based on Bible. We don't get our own ideas. It's where we are. The music, from the music to the preaching, everything we do is all Bible. all right let's sing take my life and let it be take my life and let it be consecrated lord to thee take my hands and let them Sovereign, I love At the impulse of Thy love Take my feet and let them be Swift and beautiful for Thee Take my voice and let me sing Always only for my king Take my lips and let them be Filquent messages from thee Take my silver and my gold Take my love, my God, I pour, and I feed this treasure store. Take myself and I will pour. I tell you what, this is a prayer put into a song. That's what it is. Lord, take my life and let it be all for you, Lord. Let's pray. We're going to pray for the food. Please go get your T-shirt and make your way to lunch, okay? The people that are on the tables over there, Don't go to the church and just tell them your size and patiently wait. Okay? All right, let's pray. Heavenly Father, thank you, Lord, for this ministry. Thank you, Lord, for each person that is here this morning and those who are online that cannot be here because of illness or maybe jobs or work. Lord, just pray for them. But thank you, Lord, for all that you have done. Lord, God be the glory. We're grateful that we are your servants. We're grateful for this local church. And I pray, Lord, put a hedge of protection around this place. Protect us as we move forward with the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, reaching those who are lost and encouraging your children. Bless the food, Lord, as nourishment for our bodies. Bless our fellowship. In Jesus' name, I pray. Amen. All right, make your way to the t-shirts.