What a great reminder of the cross of Jesus Christ. 1 Peter chapter 4, please. 1 Peter chapter 4. We are in a passage that Peter wants us to constantly let the truth recalibrate our minds. As we go about the treadmill of life and we have our regular responsibilities and regular plans and opportunities, it's easy to get our focus on the here and now and kind of lock down on the journey and not remember the big picture. And the big picture is that the end of all things is near. We don't know God's timetable, we don't know when Jesus will come back, but Peter encouraged the readers at this time that they need to live with eternity in mind, and that matches other parts of scripture as well. And for us today, we are encouraged to do the same thing, live with eternity in view. And when we keep the end in mind, that this is not all that there is. It has an effect then on our activity, what we spend our lives doing. And so we started in verse 7 last week of chapter 4. If you look there, it says, the end of all things is near. Therefore, be of a sober sound judgment and a sober spirit for the purpose of prayer. So, in light of the end, in light of eternity, our lives should, number one, be for focused prayer. We should constantly be living with that perspective that we have the opportunity to commune with our Savior on a regular basis. The Spirit lives inside of us, the throne of grace is always available to us, and so we can walk in a prayerful life day in and day out. As well, the next verse says in verse 8, So in light of the end, our lives should be full of love. Our lives should look like true followers of Christ that we, no matter what the person is like, no matter what they've done to us, we live lives with a stretched out kind of love, a fervent love for one another. And many times that involves covering or forgiving, letting love cover the sins that we so quickly and easily partake in on a regular basis. Now, continuing on the passage this morning, let's look at verse 9. It says, be hospitable to one another without complaint. as each one has received a special gift, employ it in serving one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. Whoever speaks is to do so as one who is speaking the utterances of God. Whoever serves is to do so as one who is serving by the strength by which God supplies. so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ to whom belongs the glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. As we look at verse 9 here, we find out the next encouragement for us, and that is that in light of the end, our lives should be willing to give. our lives should be willing to give. It says there to be hospitable to one another. Again, it's within the context of the family of God, and it extends then elsewhere to the way we have opportunity to give to those who God sovereignly brings across our path. Now from a cultural perspective, hospitality looked very different in these days. We didn't have a Marriott across the street back at that time, where if you're traveling through an area, you could kind of settle in very comfortably through the night. We had opportunity for the church to provide housing for strangers and for travelers that would be coming through the area and many times from church to church serving different places. So hospitality was something that was very, very personal. The inns or the so-called hotels at this time were places that you really didn't want to probably be a part of. They were known more for immoral activity. And so there was a great need, day in day out, for people, God's people, to show hospitality, and literally it can mean there, to show love to a stranger. And so the idea is to give even when you don't necessarily even know everything about the person you're giving to, and perhaps you're giving in such a personal way that you're inviting them into your personal context. Now, how many of us over the last, let's say, few weeks, We were given to hospitality because it is encouraged for pastors in the scripture, but it's also in Romans chapter 12, it's encouraged for all believers. We are all to be practicing, that's a present tense, active. We are to be practicing hospitality. So over the last few weeks, how many of us have invited people into our personal context? not even saying our homes necessarily, but our personal context where you show the love of Christ because you understand this is not all that there is. Like there's a bigger picture. Yes, you're busy, you have all kinds of things going on, and there's you know, really all kinds of options for you to fill up your schedule and do with your resources, but how many of us have actually poured into someone else by letting them in our personal context? You know, I think one of the after effects of COVID for the church is that we have lost a little bit of that desiring to be with people. And it's a natural thing. You spend time isolated, and then that isolation becomes more of a pattern of life, probably for the first time. For most of us in this congregation, the first time where we kind of intentionally isolated ourselves from other people. I know at least first time in my life. But over that time, and with all the other voices that are happening and speaking into the situation, there's this subtle change that takes place in our hearts where it's like, we don't like to be as close to people as we once were. And the after effects of COVID really have has hurt the church, which is why I love standing up here this morning and seeing God's people interact. Because that's what we were designed to do. We are a family. We are to be together. We are to be loving one another with stretched out kind of love. Resting in the sovereignty of God. Now we're not foolish about it. And we try to be wise with all the things that are afforded to us today. But we don't let our circumstances and the infiltration of ideas that really go against the scripture, we don't let that change us and how we live. We may find new opportunities and new ways to go about our hospitality and our service to others, but we're still engaged. And I've read article after article and I've talked to pastor after pastor who coming out of COVID feel that the church has changed in this regard. Because of the isolation, because it doesn't take long to develop patterns where it's sometimes easy to say, you know, I just like staying at home. I can catch the service on the screen and it actually feels pretty good. Of course it feels good. I'm talking to a church that most people came back and I'm thankful for that. But the subtle mindset that perhaps has affected your life, I think maybe sometimes the word needs to recalibrate. And we must be practicing hospitality with a big picture in mind. We have opportunity to give to one another from the resources and the context, the personal context that we have. This week we will be beginning our community groups and there will be 18 different homes opened across Greenville County for our church people to get together and enjoy fellowship because people are willing to practice hospitality. That's a glorious thing. It's a wonderful thing. I hope you'll take a part of it. I hope you won't let the mindset of our culture and the day in which we live that, yeah, I just kind of like to keep my space and I like to kind of do my own thing. No, get involved in people's lives. Practice hospitality as you are able. Really strive to put action to that stretched out love. There can always be an excuse, right? We can find one excuse after another. Things are too expensive. I have an inadequate house. It doesn't look like what everybody else has. It's not clean enough. It's not really my personality. I'm kind of an introvert. I'm not an extrovert. I really don't have time. My schedule is so full. The excuses can go on and on and on as to why we don't do this. But I hope, as a follower of Christ, you take the scriptures and you actually wrestle with it. It's not just information that you partake of and you receive, but it's information that you then use to evaluate your life. And it's like, okay, am I practicing hospitality? Am I being hospitable to anyone in life right now? And if not, then we change. We look to the Lord to help us grow and change in these areas. We live life with open hands because our affections are set on things that are above. Set your affections on things above. Live in light of eternity. And with that in mind, we will be willing to give. If we really believe Jesus is coming back, and there was a point this week where I was very caught up in just earthbound living, and the Holy Spirit brought the thought across my mind, what if Jesus came back right now? I'm anxious, I'm worried, the list could go on and on. And when we live with eternity in mind, it helps us to recalibrate, to clarify. The truth always clarifies. So our lives should be willing to give, and that can look a variety of different ways. But we must be giving, we must be obeying the scripture and striving to trust the Lord in this area. Number four, I would suggest in the next verse, verse 10, it says, as each one has received a special gift, employ it in serving one another as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. In light of the end, our lives should be given to service. Our lives should be given to service. And I want to start with talking about serving the Lord at a place where I hope we would all agree with and it would come natural to the conversation. But it's important because sometimes our service can get very man-centered. God has gifted us, He's given us natural abilities, and when we come to know Christ, the Spirit uses those abilities, perhaps even given us new gifts. And so there's this temptation in our lives to see the good things that we have to offer. We see those good things, and we can rob God of His glory. So I want to start with making sure we understand our service must be God-centered. We must fight against the temptation to steal the glory of God in any way in our service to Him. Because at the end of our passage this morning, it says, So our service to God must be God-centered. It must be His glory that motivates us to do the things that we do for Him, and His glory is our measurement of success. Our service to Christ is only successful as God is glorified through the process. We must live with a God-centered perspective. And that applies specifically to our service to him. Now this text says very clearly, each one has received a special gift. So if we think about God being at the center, we understand that anything that we have in service to him came from him. The rest of the passage talks about the manifold grace of God, the various grace of God that he gives to us, and particularly in this context, in our gifts. So if you are here this morning and you are a follower of Christ, how does one become a follower of Christ? Well, when they come to the point where they realize that they are a sinner separated from God, where Their Creator is holy, perfect in every way, and they understand from their life, however old they are, that their lives do not match their Creator's perfection. In fact, their lives fall significantly short because that's what the scripture says, for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God. So God and His holiness is perfection. We fall short coming into this world, dead in our trespasses and sins, and yet God and His love His holiness and His love, working perfectly together, provided a way for us to be right with Him, for this sin problem to be taken care of. And we have sung about Him throughout the morning, we have testified, we've prayed to Him. Jesus Christ is our Redeemer. Jesus is our Savior. Jesus came, He lived a life of perfect obedience, He obeyed the Father, went to the cross, fulfilled every prophecy, obeyed the Father's will, and died on the cross, and He rose victoriously. And through Him, if we will repent of our sins and trust in His finished work, He will make us born again. He will save us. That's how you become a follower of Christ. And if you have done that, if God has sovereignly worked in your life, and you are here today as a follower of Jesus Christ, then you have at least one gift from God. Because verse 10 says, as each one has received a special gift. Again, if you're a follower of Christ, and I hope I'm looking at a crowd, a multitude of followers of Christ, I want you to think individually here. Because this text says each one of us has received a special gift from God. Other texts of Scripture say the same thing. 1 Corinthians 12, verse 7. But to each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. That manifestation, that's referring to a gift from God. Verse 11 of the same chapter. So in the sovereignty of God, the Spirit gives gifts to His children. Again, they're not things that we came up with. They're not things that we kind of chased after. These are God-given gifts for his service. So, if you're here today, a follower of Christ, let me ask you, are you serving the Lord with the gift or gifts that he has provided for you? Now I realize some folks here today, and maybe some listening online, are new to the Christian faith. You have just recently come to be born again. And so you may not understand this idea of a spiritual gift. So I'm going to give you a couple definitions. One's a little more simple, and then one's a little more complex. But the first one would be any God-given ability to do something that is useful for strengthening God's church. any God-given ability to do something useful for the strengthening of God's church. So if you think of the masses of people who are here today, and the fact that God promises that if we're born again, we have all been given a gift by the Spirit, what wonderful things we can do and accomplish for the glory of God. to fulfill his purposes in this time and place. A little more complex definition. A spiritual gift is a sovereign, God-given, Holy Spirit-energized ability. Because some folks are born with natural talent, they come to be born again, and the Spirit of God takes that natural talent that is still God-given, but he energizes it for glorious purposes. Now these gifts can be temporary, there were temporary gifts in the scripture, and then some are permanent, but they are given for the local church. So every single one of us, we have been given a gift. And so, again, it could be a natural ability that God has given it, maybe ability that you developed through schooling and training by the strength that God has provided, as it says here in the text. and maybe ability that you were granted by the Spirit after you came to know Jesus. Now, the spiritual gifts in the scripture, there's been a lot of teaching on those throughout church history, a lot of confusion. Sometimes people have taken them and they've dissected them and they've analyzed them and they've, you know, if you Google, how do I figure out my spiritual gift, there's all kinds of resources today that will come up. You can even take a test and there's questions on there about how you react in life and And so you can kind of take this test and it'll narrow down and at the end it'll tell you this is your spiritual gift. When you study the New Testament, you see that there are a couple different lists of gifts in the New Testament. They're actually not identical. And when you have the gifts explained in the scripture, I think God intentionally kept them a little vague. I'm not sure that I would recommend getting so serious about doing something because the Bible never says to search out your spiritual gift. The Bible says to use your gift, employ it and serve in one another. And so we have sometimes, an overemphasis on the gifts and trying to figure out what they are, and it becomes a rigid, kind of a precise thing that really, I think, when you look in the scripture, it's very, very general. You have lists in Romans 12, 1 Corinthians, Ephesians. Peter here just gives two categories, those who speak and those who serve. And so they're, I think, not meant to be exhaustive, but they are really meant to be general. And like I said, some of them were given for a season of time. You had the ability on some to do signs and wonders, and that was to authenticate the message of the Messiah. But Scripture clearly teaches that some gifts have ceased And so we have to be very, very careful that we keep the gifts of God in the right perspective. So you may say, well, how do I know? Well, you can probably ask some very basic questions. Well, what am I naturally good at? What are things that I can do that then I could use in the context of the local church? What are the things that I enjoy? What are the things you enjoy? in regards to helping and serving other people. And when you understand that, then you can be a part of the local church and use those gifts. You have just things like, what do I gravitate towards? Am I a hands-on kind of person, or do I love to study? There's different ways that we can generally evaluate what kind of activities do you get excited about? We believe in spirit-motivated ministry here. So we present a need and we let the spirit work to motivate people to use their gifts to serve him. But the responsibility is that we employ it in serving one another. So if we're so focused on trying to figure it out that we never spend time actually serving, that's not really what the scripture says. The scripture says everyone has received a gift from the Spirit. Take that gift and serve God's church. And so we have to be very, very careful that we don't lock ourselves in necessarily and say, well, that's not my gift. I would be very, very careful. that you have an open heart, you're willing to do things. We have, in the last few years, have seen this wonderfully displayed within our church where people have a burden to help others in certain ways. Something with our handyman ministry and the widow ministry, it happened so naturally and it was such a clear example of spirit-motivated ministry where there was one guy particularly who wanted to really help the widows of our church and serve in that way, and his burden then grew in other ways. Currently we have a guy in our church who has a burden to mentor young guys, and so he's encouraging some of the older guys in the church who have skills and desires along those ways to mentor and get involved in a mentor ministry. I love it when the Spirit motivates a person to use their gifts to serve the body of Christ locally and even beyond. Sometimes we get to a place where we've been serving and we're just tired and we're weary, and that service probably should come to an end in that regard, and maybe God will open up something else for you. You're not stuck. You may say, I've been doing the same thing for 20 years at Calvary, and I'm just kind of tired. It's okay. God will provide something else. You're not stuck. You're not in a hole where if you don't do it, no one else will. God will provide for his church. There are so many people here with gifts. God is going to use those gifts and accomplish his purposes. But our responsibility, we must take it individually. We are to employ our gifts in serving others. Take the gifts that God has given us. Don't think too highly of ourselves. We don't want pride to develop. Again, going back to that idea of it being God-centered, we want it to be something that God has glorified, so we humble ourselves and we get involved in other people's lives, and it's really for the edification of the body. And there's no gifts that are better than the other. We have these two categories here as it says in verse 11. Whoever speaks is to do so as the one speaking the utterances of God. And whoever serves is to do so as the one who is serving by the strength which God supplies. So we have these two general categories. Category A, if you're teaching kind of a gifted person, you're not better than category B, the person who uses their hands to serve the church. gifts are not meant to be compared and evaluated and allow pride and selfishness and jealousy to seep in. No, none of that should be when we understand it all came from God and it's all about Him. So we don't serve so that other people will see us, so that we can get that pat on the back that we feel that we need, We serve because God has gifted us, and it's part of big-picture living. In light of eternity, we live lives of service. And the Scripture talks about every part having this gift, kind of like the body. Everyone has one, and when we all come together, it's a glorious thing. Some people are diligent students of the Word. And they have an unusual perception of what the Bible means and how to interpret it. And you know what? As God's people, we should learn from them. Some people naturally exhort us to get busy and do what the Bible says, and we need to be challenged by them. Some people are gentle and merciful and compassionate, and we need to be encouraged by them. Some people have been granted resources that can help fulfill the ministry here, and we need to be supplied by them. Some people have administrative and leadership gifts, and we need to follow their vision and direction. Some people have such great faith and great confidence in God and His promises, and when we come with them and we're around them, we're strengthened and we're encouraged by them in our own faith. Some people work hard at assisting others in times of need and we need to be helped by them. So none of us are a church in and of ourselves. We are a body. And we need each other to accomplish the purposes that God has for us. So your gift or gifts are vital to Calvary Baptist Church. If you're part of this church family, your gifts are vital here. Please don't take the gift of God lightly. This is a tremendous thing that he has allowed you to have because of his manifold grace, it says. We have to be good stewards of these things. Are you stewarding the manifold grace of God, this glorious grace that he has given to us through his gifts? Are you stewarding it well? What does it mean to steward? It means to manage. Someone who manages the resources of someone else. So God, by his Spirit, has given us a gift. It's all because of him. It's all through him. And we need to manage, steward those responsibilities very, very well. Your gifts are vital here. And you may be in the speaking category, and you need to have great confidence that when you speak, as the text says, that you are speaking the utterances of God. So it is with great confidence that I get up here, not because I have good opinions or good ideas, but when I open God's Word and as I say things that reflect God's truth, I can have the confidence these are His very words, the truth of God. When we stand and we teach, they are the words of God. And whoever serves is to do so with the strength that God provides. God is the mobilizer for your gift. and the energy that you need to serve him. And when we do these things, the end of 11 says, all things point so that God would be glorified through Jesus Christ. And how often and how long? Well, the glory and dominion, it belongs to him forever and ever and ever. So when do we stop? the day we die. When God concludes our journey of faith, we stop serving him. Because it's the glory of God through Jesus Christ that should be in view day in, day out, forever and ever. Now, as we close this morning, I wanted to walk you through this last week at Calvary Baptist Church. And I want to start by saying, well done, church. Well done. I am so thankful Yes, we stand and we proclaim the truth, and I let the Holy Spirit do His work to be able to accomplish all the purposes that God wants. But as I was working through this and thinking about this last one week at Calvary Baptist Church, my heart was overwhelmed with joy as a pastor. Because a lot of times you hear the statistics, and some of those statistics come from across all denominations, and so it's really hard to compare, but you hear a lot of times that 20% of the people do all the work in the church and think really bad, you know, ratings on serving Jesus Christ. And I'm just so thankful that that's not Calvary. And I don't know what the exact percentage is, but it's gotta be 60, 70, maybe 80% of the people here are actively serving Jesus. This is a unique place. And so I wanna conclude this morning by saying, well done. And I want you to know that in the last week, these are some of the ways that God has used our church family to glorify himself in one week of our lives. starting from last Sunday afternoon when a group of people met together and organized and went out into our community to knock on doors and give out the gospel. The NET team worked last week, a group, to present Jesus Christ to our community because we are supposed to, as a church, we are supposed to be making disciples of Jesus Christ. And then shortly after that, we had people that have come together to serve so that Other people in our church can be built up and strengthened. So we had all these nursery workers and all these children's workers showed up last Sunday night so that people could take advantage of a marriage ministry and be strengthened there and then go to classes to be strengthened there. And you had all these volunteers who serve in our youth, our student ministries. Like, it's just this army of people that rarely does the person who just comes in and out, or maybe you don't have the vantage point, but it's a glorious thing to watch. I heard recently of two different situations where visitors came into our church. They were met that day, and they received an invitation that very day. to go to lunch. One was taken out to lunch, and the other was taken home, and they spent the afternoon over a meal at the table together. That's a glorious thing. We had, just this week, opportunity to see our church family serve meals to people who were in need. We had one lady who had surgery recently, and there was a group that organized to provide some meals along those lines. We had one of our gospel partners here on campus getting ready, the Fraser Evangelistic team, they were here serving all week and prepping for the year ahead, and we had people just flooding through, bringing meals. In fact, I think it was April Menking, she was here on Friday bringing a meal, she went to the hospital yesterday to have her baby. I think she's still there, I don't know the details on that yet. Of course she did. All week, people serving along these lines. We had a guy come on Monday with some equipment that we don't have and he cleared out some area to make our grounds look so beautiful over in that picnic area. We had another guy who came on Friday and he brought some of his equipment. He was trimming our sidewalks and the grass and working all around here. Tuesday night, we had a group of guys that were serving our community through their basketball ministry, giving the gospel to the same group of guys pretty much every week, letting them play basketball and just loving them and pointing them to Jesus. We had a group of people who are available to have Facebook and be a part of our Facebook group. And the moment they heard about Debbie Howard, it was like praying, praying, praying. And I love to see that as a pastor. When something happens, there's a host of people who are seeking God on their behalf. We had people here Tuesday night who serve in our youth ministry, and they spent a whole evening just talking about how they were going to prepare for this year and serve the Lord in the youth ministry on a Tuesday night. Who does that? And then Wednesday night, a whole other group of people who are part of those community groups who are willing to host and open up their homes, and the leaders, they came together to prepare and pray for this year's community groups. Thursday night, A guy came, and he was working on, there's guys that have been working on our camera project, and he was installing, I saw him late in the afternoon, he said, hey, I'm headed over to the church to work on cameras for a couple hours. We had a group of ladies who showed up here to serve a young family in our church. Some ladies didn't even know Miranda and Daniel, but they came because they wanted to give and serve, and they gave gifts, even though they didn't even know them. Teachers prepped for many hours yesterday, starting from prepping for children's ministry and teaching our young kids about Jesus all the way up to our Sunday school hour today. Hours and hours of preparation, serving the Lord, using their gifts. We have a group of people who are doing the coffee again. Aren't you thankful that we have coffee again? And we have a group of volunteers who are doing that for us. We have greeters. People showed up here Thursday night for music practice. People showed up this morning for choir. I have a list and it goes on and on and on and on of things that we see as a pastoral team in one week. And it is glorious. Well done, church. Well done. What better thing to give your life to the service of Jesus Christ. And you're doing it. Not everyone. And the Spirit can take care of those. But many, many are using that one gift or those many gifts to obey the scriptures and serve God's church. And it is a glorious thing in one week's time. And how long are we supposed to do this again? Till the end. Week after week, day in, day out. And I hope I didn't forget anyone, and I probably did, but thank you. If I forgot, thank you for your service. And I know it's not about the accolades. It's about understanding that we are to use the gifts for God's glory right here. and our own church family. Some people take the theme park view of church where it's like, we'll go to the one who has the coolest stuff. Some people take the restaurant view of church. Well, they'll try out this menu for a while. When they get tired of it, they'll go to a different place. Some people take the concert view where it's a great show and they love watching it. Some people take the social club view where it's all about them, how good they look and how many connections they can make. But the biblical view of a church is that Jesus Christ is at the center, and it's his glory that is at stake, and we need to serve him day in, day out, week in, week out, forever and ever. And from a big picture view, it is fantastic. May God be glorified at Calvary Baptist Church over and over and over again. So what we're going to do, we're going to start it again this afternoon. Yeah, a little variety here and there, but a lot of the same activity. And it's all good. And it's all for the glory of Christ. Would you pray with me as we close this morning? God, we are not a perfect church. We are broken people, but we are redeemed through the precious blood of Christ. God, you have called us to live a life of prayer and love, a life willing to give and a life willing to serve. So God, would you energize our efforts and help us to keep doing it. Help us to think much of your grace and the gifts that you have provided. Help us to think so much of it that we will employ it in serving one another in the days ahead. God, thank you for all the activity of last week, and we just want to publicly praise you and glorify you for all that was done and all that was accomplished for your purposes. And we just ask that you would help us to keep doing it. Keep walking by faith, serving you, our wonderful Savior. God, help us as we go from this place, in your holy and precious name I pray. Amen.