I tell you what, that's one of my favorite songs. It's an old song, and I appreciate you singing it. If you got your Bibles, how many got a Bible? Wave it at me. Thank God for you. Now, if you got it, at least follow me in it, amen? Turn to I Thessalonians chapter number one, please. I Thessalonians chapter number one. I am going to preach about a theme tonight. and I am gonna preach it through the book of Thessalonians, 1 Thessalonians. There is a theme, by the way, it should be the theme of our life, the theme of the church, the theme of the Christian. And I'll examine it all the way through, 1 Thessalonians, and I'll use four or five sections here that I'll take you to as we study this. this particular passage of Scripture. The Thessalonican Church has been called the model church. If you were going to Make your church look like any other church. You ought to try to make it look like the Thessalonian church. It was the model church. Now, let me just read the first 10 verses. I'm gonna concentrate on verses eight through 10, but I wanna read this whole passage and you read it along with me. The Bible said Paul and Silvanus and Timotheus unto the church of Bethesda Nikons, which is in God the Father, and in the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace be unto you, and peace from God our Father, and the Lord Jesus Christ. We give thanks to God always for you all, making mention of you in our prayers. Listen to this. Listen to this, church. Remembering without ceasing your work of faith. By the way, if you got faith, it will work. I don't know if you got that or not. If you place faith in God, it will produce work in your life. Amen? And that's good. And your labor of love. By the way, if we're gonna labor, we ought to labor because we love Jesus. Amen? And your patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. In the sight of God and our Father. Knowing, brother and beloved, your election of God. For our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Ghost and in much assurance. As you know what manner of men we were among you for your sake, and you become followers of us and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction with joy of the Holy Ghost, so that you were examples to that to all that believed in Macedonia and Achaia. Listen to these three verses carefully. For from you sounded out the word of the Lord, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every place your faith to God is spread abroad, so that we need not to speak anything. For they themselves show of us what manner of inner end we had unto you, and how you turned to God from idols to serve the living and the true God, and to wait for His Son from heaven, whom He raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come." I pray that you'll help us in this little Bible study to be able to encourage people in their faith tonight. And Lord, help us to live lives of faith. And we'll praise you, we'll honor you. In Jesus' name, for his sake, amen. Look again, if you would, at verse number eight. That is our text and theme for tonight. The Bible said, for from you sounded out the word of the Lord, not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but also in every, listen, listen, and listen, and every place your faith to God were to spread abroad. I wanna preach tonight on this subject. Faith, or your faith, says it all. Let me say it again. Faith says it all. My Bible said, and maybe you'll quote with me, the just shall live by faith. Without faith, it is impossible to please Him. We want by faith and not by. I believe this. If you're gonna be a good Christian and make an impact on this world, you gotta be a people of faith. We cannot make an impact unless we are people of faith. This church of Macedonia was known everywhere. You know what they were known for? Their faith in God. Let me ask you, what's this world know you about? What's this world know about you? Do they know that you are a man of God or a woman of God or a young person that loves God and they know that you are a person of faith? Amen. I wanna give you five things about faith tonight that I looked through in this book that I wanna encourage you with tonight. By the way, you just don't know when your faith's gonna be tried. How many of y'all know we don't know what's on tomorrow? How many of you know that, hey, hey, you don't really know what you're gonna have to face in this life. And I say this to you, if we're gonna face things, and we are, we better have some faith to face them with. Amen? Good preaching, brethren. Let me talk, first of all, And I may be criticized on this first point, but I'm gonna say it this way anyway. First of all, I wanna talk about saving faith. By the way, it's by grace are you saved through. And that naughty of yourselves is a gift of God, not of works, lest any man should boast. I wanna say something about saving faith tonight. And I want you to hear me carefully. There is a close connection between faith and repentance. Let me say it this way, and I'll hope you get this. If you check the two words out, Chad, faith and repentance, they both come from the Greek word metatemo. which means a change of mind, which results in a change of direction. I say this to you tonight, if you really put faith in Christ, you will become, as brother Josh was teaching, a new creature in Christ. And you cannot separate faith from repentance, because if you truly look to God to be saved, then you truly will be changed and will turn around and go into another direction. And you'll go toward God. You'll turn from your idols to serve the living God. I want you to know what is plaguing America's churches. It's superficial Christianity. or what I call one, two, three Christianity. Hello? It's not one, two, three, ladies and gentlemen. It's a holy God that comes on you and convicts you of your sin and reveals Christ in you and you by faith trust him and you turn from your sin and you turn to a living God. We just don't see much of that today. And this superficial, I'll sign a card. Or this superficial, pat me on the back and I'm okay. Ladies and gentlemen, I believe if you've really been saved and you really placed your faith, you have turned from your sin. And by the way, God just didn't save you from hell, he saved you from your sin. And it is your sin that takes you to hell. Am I preaching? Why? Let me go a little further on that. There's a lot of people that quote unquote says they're church people, but they live like a devil every day of the week. Come on now. They drink, they cuss, they act like a world. Am I preaching? Rich, am I doing it? By the way, I really believe if you've been saved, you dumped that stuff. Hey, boy, I'm stuck. I feel like I'm stuck. I really believe if you've been saved, you dumped that old junk. Well, let me say it better. God dunks it out of you, cleans it out of you, and puts a new man in you. a new mind that you might know Him, a new heart that you might love Him, and a new will that you might follow Him. That's a new creature. Somebody help me tonight. You all see what I see? There's a lot of hypocrisy in this world. A lot of people says they're something and they're not what they say they are. Hey man, they live a double life. They live wickedly all week. They come out on church on Sunday, throw the little chick in the offering, and thinking that is gonna make them okay. Ladies and gentlemen, the only thing that'll make you okay is there'll be a time in your life that you saw yourself wicked, saw yourself lost, saw yourself undone, saw yourself ungodly, and repented of your sins, and turned from your sin to serve a living God. Is that all right? And I say this to you, ladies and gentlemen, this is what's missing in our preaching today, in our churches today, is old timey preaching that produces faith. And how many believe faith come about hearing? And hearing by the word of God and produces faith. And that faith produces a change. Let me, will you go with me to Romans for a moment? Can I magnify this a little more? That may mean I don't get all the way through this. Then I can't help it, I sense God working on me on this. Turn to Romans chapter number four. I wanna say this to you, listen to me carefully. Salvation has always been by grace through faith. It was by grace through faith in the Old Testament. You say, no, it wasn't. It was by works in the Old Testament. Ladies and gentlemen, that's just not true. Hey, hey, Preacher Smith, and there'll be works in the tribulation period. That is just not true. Salvation has always been by grace through faith. Well, let me prove it to you. Let's just start with verse one of Romans four. This'll run a hyper-dispensations right out of the room. I can't hardly believe. Those people believe there's more than one gospel. There's one gospel. They just one gospel. Not two, not three. And by the way, they just one commission. I heard one, I heard a guy preach another day, blow my mind. He said there was four commissions. Said there was a good one, a great one, a greater one, and a greatest one. That's not in my Bible. My Bible said go in all the world and preach the gospel to every creature. The good news is the death, the burial, and the resurrection. Whoo! Man, I am preaching. Look at Romans 4. Are y'all there? Say amen. Just let me read a few verses. What shall we say then that Abraham our father, as pertaining to the flesh, hath found? For if Abraham were justified by works, hath word to glory, but not before God. For what saith the Scripture? Abraham believed God. That's Old Testament. And it was counted unto him for what? Righteousness. Am I preaching? Now look at verse four. Now to him that worketh is a reward not reckoned of grace, but of what? But to him that worketh not, but believeth on him that justifieth the ungodly. His faith is counted for righteousness. You wanna know how you got imputed righteousness placed in your life and God imputed his righteousness to you? It is the moment, the moment that you place faith in Christ, God's righteousness was placed on you. Let me read a few more verses. How many like that? Even as David, how many believe he's Old Testament? Also described the blessedness of man and whom God imputed righteousness without works. Said blessed are they whose iniquities are forgiven and whose sins are covered. Blessed is the man to whom the Lord would not impute sin. Listen to this, cometh this blessedness that upon the circumcision only or upon the or the circumcision only, or upon the uncircumcision also. For we say that faith was reckoned to Abraham for righteousness." How was it then reckoned? When he was circumcised? or in uncircumcision. Not in circumcision, but in uncircumcision. Woo! He received the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of faith, which he had yet being uncircumcised, that he might be the father of all them that believe, though they be not circumcised, and that righteousness might be imputed unto them. Now, stay with me. Now look at verse 16, Chad, I like this. After all that statement in those verses, look what Paul sums it up. Therefore it is of faith that it might be by grace. I want you to know the grace of God comes on us the moment in our human responsibility And in our free will, we repent of our sins and trust Christ as Savior. Somebody say amen. Oh, I know it's not preached like this much. No, no, no. It's easy to believe in something. Ladies and gentlemen, I say to you, Somebody's really saved, they're gonna show up in church. Somebody really saved, it's gonna produce works in them. And I'm not talking about folks who've been sick, Joe. You know, people have been out of church because they're sick. There's a lot of people out of church that ain't sick. And I'll tell you, those that are sick, Joe had a wonderful testimony tonight. Those that are sick out of church are longer to be in church. Cause see, there's something in them. when they got saved. Woo! Let me give you a second thing. I know I ain't gonna get all five of them. But go to chapter three. Let's cover another part of our faith. If you read with me correctly, you saw that this church had suffered much affliction. So number one, Faith says it all in that it is saving faith. But number two, faith also is suffering faith. Look at chapter three, one through six. This is amazing to me. Paul sent Timothy to this church to check out their faith because what Paul knew was this church was in great affliction and in great suffering. And let's read these verses also. If you're there, say amen. Therefore, when we couldn't no longer forbear, we thought it good to be left at Athens alone and sent to Mophius, our brother, and the minister of God and our fellow laborer in the gospel of Christ to establish you and to comfort you concerning your faith. that no man should be moved by these afflictions. I wanna say this. There's some people in our church and have been through, in this last year of their life, afflictions. They've been tested. Somebody help me preach. Every once in a while, we can all smile when everything's going good. But when the doctor comes and says, and gives you a bad report, how you gonna live then? When some of your bills get messed up and your finances get low, how we gonna live then? I wanna talk about suffering faith. Go on with me in these verses. That no man should be moved by these afflictions. For you yourself know that we are appointed thereto. For verily, when we were with you, we told you before that you should suffer tribulation, even as it came to pass. And you know, you know, if you listen to Joe Osteen and some of these other people, they'd make you think if you had trouble, you was in sin. Hello? Joyce Myers got run clear off the TV for saying that. Her whole message was, if you having any trouble, you having any sickness, you just ain't where God wants you to be. That's a lie from the devil. Somebody help me preach. Listen to what he said, verse five. For this cause, when I could no longer forbear, I sent to you, sent to know your faith. That's by some means the tempter have tempted you, and our labor be in vain. But notice what happened when Timothy went down there. But now when Timotheus came from you unto us, and brought us good tidings of your faith and charity, that you have good remembrance of us always, desiring greatly to see us as we also to see you. Ladies and gentlemen, I will not tell you that you're gonna get out of this life without your faith being tested. But rather, I know that it will. But I want you all to know, in the midst of your midnight hour, in the midst of your trouble, in the midst of your heartache, there stands Jesus. There stands one. who said he'd never leave you, nor forsake you. David said it like this, I was young, and now I'm old, but I've never seen the righteous forsaken, nor his seed baked in bread. I want you to know something, I've got a God When He sees your faith and sees you trusting Him in the midst of your midnight hour. Hey, listen to me, He's smiling. He's gonna give you grace and strength and to help you in the time of need. That's why you can come boldly in the time of grace, boldly and find grace and mercy in the time of need. Somebody help me preach. We got 14 people in this church currently fighting cancer. Think about it. We got people in this church fighting heart disease. We got people in this church, I think a day and a half up, I've been in the hospital tomorrow, they found out today they had six blockages. He's gonna have a, perhaps tomorrow, I think, open heart surgery. You say, how's that? They ain't gonna make it through. How am I gonna make it through? There's only one way. Living by faith. in Jesus above, trusting, abiding in his great love. That's some of you right now. The devil's been beating up on you. And you feel like you're just like the three Hebrew children you've been thrown into the fire. But I wanna remind you something, ladies and gentlemen, in the midst of that fire, those three boys, was the Son of God. And the Bible said that they did not have any hurt, that not one hair on their head was singed. And then Nebuchadnezzar himself, who was a pagan, said, it looks like the Son of God. I'm glad in our midnight hour, When we're all alone, when we're suffering and hurting and we feel pain in this world, there's someone that we can lock into. There's somebody we can lock into and place our faith and know that he has us sure and that he has a hold of our hand and that he's gonna take us through our storm. Somebody help me, preach right there. I'm only gonna get two of these. Ladies and gentlemen, let me recap. I think most everybody's saved. Number one, saving faith. Have you really been saved? Don't trust in your church membership, trust in Christ. Number two, are you going through something? I wanna have me right now. You don't have to raise your hand, maybe when we pray, or going through something right now, you never thought you'd face. Maybe it's sickness, maybe it's some kind of sorrow, maybe you've been forsaken by friends. Maybe there's something that you can't even utter with your lips. Can I tell you something? The just shall live by faith, and God will take you through. Bow your head with me. I'm done. I wonder how many know you saved raise your hand. Hold it up. I thank everybody. But how many of you right now are going through a storm in your life and you're just, you've been kind of beat back and forth and you want to make it? and you wanna glorify God, and I say to you, the only way is you trusting Him. Though He slayed me, Job said, yet will I trust Him. Help me slip up your hand and say, I'm going through something, I need your prayers. Maybe it's a family problem, physical problem, just raise your hand. God bless you. Stand with me, if you wanna come and pray, you come. For us, faith will say it all. Lord, thank you tonight. for just these two little points, the two little thoughts that tells us about our faith. God, help folks just come around this altar and pray, get encouraged, and know that they're gonna make it because they're trusting in you. In Jesus' name, for his sake, amen.