First Thessalonians chapter number one, the Apostle Paul is writing to this church, this group of believers there in Thessalonica, and you know that because he says it in verse number one, Paul and Silvanus and Timotheus, under the church of the Thessalonians, 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. Notice verse number two. We give thanks to God always for you all, making mention of you in our prayers, remembering without ceasing your work of faith and labor of love and patience of hope. in our Lord Jesus Christ in the sight of God and our Father. I want to spend just a few moments tonight just talking about this subject. I love my church. I love my church. You know, we've set this day aside as a day in which we sort of celebrate our church and what God has done in this place, what God has allowed us to be a part of and what we believe God is going to continue to allow us to do here. And that's not to say that we have arrived. In other words, by having an I Love My Church Sunday isn't saying that there's nothing that needs to be fixed, that everything is exactly as it should be, and we don't have any problems and don't have any issues. In fact, far, far from it. There's no such thing as a church that has arrived and doesn't have any issues. But here's what a day like this acknowledges. A day like this acknowledges God's blessing upon us. And just even throughout the day, hearing about how God changes lives through the work of the Cleveland Baptist Church is just an incredible thing, and it's something that we need to be reminded of. You know there are many things that I love in life. Some of the things that I love, I just wrote down some of the things. I love golf. I love to play golf. I'm not very good at it, but I enjoy it. I even like to watch other people play golf because I've played some. I know how challenging it is when I see those guys, the way they can do what they do. It's an incredible thing. I love vacations. Anybody else love vacations in here? I love to go on vacation to get away from it all for maybe just a week or two and spend just some dedicated, concentrated time with my family. I love traveling. This will come as a real surprise. I love eating. I love to eat. I think probably most of us are like that. I love my family, and I love time with my family. I love holidays, and I love, as a preacher, I love preaching and teaching God's word. Hardly anything that I love to do more than that. I love sports. Really, the list could be expanded many times over. Isn't God so good to us to give us a life full of so many things that we love? Do you ever stop to think about how blessed you are? I have traveled some, I've seen people live in really, really difficult circumstances, and I think to myself just how good we have it here in the United States of America and how blessed we are. And I realize some of you, you've dealt with some challenges and some difficult things. I think the vast majority of us would say that we are abundantly blessed. But you know one of my greatest loves in life is this church. And I mean that with all of my heart. I feel very strongly about this church. In fact, I feel very personal about this church because of what God's done in my life here and because of what God's done in the life of my family here. I have very strong personal feelings about this place. And I would even say that I feel very defensive about this church. You know, I think, I thought to myself, writing those statements down, I thought to myself, well, you know what, I'm in good company. I'm in really good company. Here's why. Because the Lord Jesus Christ feels the same way about this church that I do. He loves this church. He loves it way more than I do. The Bible says that he died for the church. That he has strong feelings of personal attachment to the church. It's his bride. Did you know that Jesus is defensive about his church? I sometimes wonder, people start running their mouth about a church, or about a pastor, about a group of people. I say, you better be careful. That's Christ's bride. I'm not going to sit around and talk about men. I'm not going to talk about your bride, that's your wife. That's the person that God gave to you. I'd be very, very careful talking about the bride of the Lord Jesus Christ. I just want you to know it's a blessing to know that the Lord feels the same way about my church as I feel about my church. Because this congregation is his bride, therefore we can be certain that he loves us. that he feels deeply personal towards us and that he is defensive of us. Now, as Paul wrote to the church at Thessalonica, he rehearses some memories that he has of them and his time with them. And he does two things in the beginning of this letter. Number one, he gives thanks to the Lord for them. He gives thanks to the Lord for them. We see that in verse number two. He says, we give thanks to God always for you all. And then notice the second thing that he does at the end of that verse. He then makes mention of them in his prayers. Now this isn't the message tonight, but can I just say that I can hardly think of two more encouraging things one believer could do for another believer than to tell them, listen, I'm thankful for you and mean it. And then to follow that up with this statement of this line, and not only am I thankful for you, but I'm praying for you. and then for them to mean it. In other words, you want to make life better for some people. You want to be an encouragement to folks. Why don't you every Sunday, why don't you look for somebody different that you can go to and you can tell them, hey, I want you to know something. I'm thankful for you. And I also want you to know something. I'm praying for you. Boy, you do those two things and that would revolutionize this church if all of us could get a hold of that. and would just determine, you know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna be thankful to God for the church family he's given me, and then I'm gonna pray for my church family. I mean, I'm gonna do that all the time. I just gotta tell you, we'd be a better church if we communicated this type of thing regularly to one another and we meant it. I just love how Paul opens this letter. He says, man, I just want you to know I'm thankful for you, and I make mention of you in my prayers all the time. I'm thinking about you, and I'm praying for you. Now, the establishment of this church is recorded for us in Acts 17. We won't take time to turn over there, but you'll discover that if you'll read Acts 17, that it comes right on the heels of Acts 16, where they were, remember they were beaten and they were thrown into prison, and it was at midnight that they began to sing praises. The earthquake and the jail house opened, the jailer was saved, the Philippian jailer was saved, and then they left that city shortly thereafter because of just some of the things that had unfolded there. It felt like it was time for them to move on, and the very next place that they would go is a place called Thessalonica. And it was in Thessalonica that they arrived, and you'll discover as you read Acts 17, that Paul, for three Sabbath days, three weeks in a row, every Saturday, he went to the local synagogue, and he preached the gospel to the Jews that were living in that city of Thessalonica. Now, Acts 17 will tell you that some of the Jews were converted. Some of them. Sounds like there weren't too many, but there were a few that were converted. However, the Bible says that in that city, many Gentiles were saved. Many Gentiles were saved and the Bible even says in Acts 17 and verse number four, that there were some chief women in that city who accepted the Lord Jesus Christ as savior as well. So again, think about this church that Paul was there for three Sabbath days. and he preached the gospel. At the end of those three Sabbath days, there's a collection of people, some Jews, probably not a lot, a multitude or many Gentiles, and among those Gentiles, some chief women, ladies that perhaps maybe were well thought of, maybe even ladies that had some wealth and some prosperity, and these folks got saved under Paul's ministry, and the church at Thessalonica was born. But, as was so often the case, the Jews in that particular city, they stirred people up in that city, and they warned them, said, these guys are dangerous men. These guys are preaching a dangerous message, and they're preaching a dangerous gospel. And as a result, Paul and his ministry team had to flee from Thessalonica because of this particular persecution. And they eventually landed at a place called Berea. Now it's clear that Paul's time in Thessalonica was more than likely brief, but let me just remind you, the Lord can do a great deal of work in a short amount of time. He is not, listen, he is not hindered like you and I are. You and I would look at a job, say, that's gonna take me this long to complete, and we'd look at the hours, maybe we'd run a little bit over it in order to finish the job, but listen, you give God just a little bit of time in your life, and he'll change your life completely. He'll change a community completely. And in that brief amount of time in which Paul was in Thessalonica, a church was born, a great church, that Paul takes the time to write this letter to, in which he is rehearsing some fond memories. It is believed that 1 Thessalonians was the very first epistle that Paul ever wrote. And he reveals in this text why he felt so strongly about the church at Thessalonica and why he was thankful for them. And I just have to tell you, as I read through this first chapter, in many respects, his reason for loving the church at Thessalonica are very similar to the reasons why I love Cleveland Baptist Church. And I thought to myself, you know, why reinvent the wheel? I mean, I can't possibly improve on Paul's writing, so why don't I just borrow from what he wrote here to express my love for my church? And I just want to share with you five or six things, and we'll be done in that. Number one, number one, I consider what Paul wrote here, and I just have to agree with him. Paul says, when I'm reminded of your faith, I love, number one, the faith of Cleveland Baptist Church. I have a liberal agenda of politicians. That's not why we're here tonight. We don't unite over our, well, you heard tonight, we don't unite over our sports teams. We heard from a dear lady in our church that roots for another. We don't unite over that. We don't unite over our social status. In other words, some of you may live in really, really nice neighborhoods, and some of you may live in neighborhoods that would be considered not so nice. So we don't unite over who has what, or we run together because, well, we're similar in this way. No, listen, what unites us tonight? The faith of the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ is what unites a church family together. Churches are a collection of born-again, baptized believers who unite together over a body of doctrine, and they determine that together we're going to do what we can to evangelize the world. Now, we may disagree on some preferential issues, but we must agree on certain things if we're going to be a New Testament church. So for almost 65 years, Cleveland Baptist Church has believed some of the following that we would say are fundamentals. These are things that we must agree on in order to worship together. We agree on this faith. We believe in the faith that the Bible is the word of God. Oh, what a blessed book we hold in our hands. The Word of God, the Bible. Brother Hoffman talked about how just faithfulness, just service after service, and we sometimes miss that in this culture, in this world today, in which we don't give God the time that He wants to take in our lives to move in us, but you sit under the preaching of God's Word, service after, it'll change you. It'll change you. This book changes lives. And so we unite together as a church family over the truth that we believe the Bible is God's word. We unite together in belief that Jesus is the Son of God. What a great Savior we have. He is the Son of God. We unite together over this, that Jesus was virgin born. That Jesus came into this world unlike anyone else who has ever come into this world. We unite together in this faith that Jesus lived a sinless life. You and I, we look at our lives, we understand how much of a mess we are, and then we stop for a moment and we think, now wait a minute. The Lord Jesus Christ spent 33 years down here, and the Bible says he was tempted in all points like as we are, and yet he never sinned. And we unite together as a church family. You may not agree with me politically, you may not be in the same place I am, or I may not be in the same place you are financially, but you know what we do? We believe that Jesus Christ lived a sinless life. We believe that he died a substitutionary death, that he was buried, and that he rose again the third day. And here in about three weeks or so, we're going to gather together and we're going to worship a risen Savior. And I got news for folks that just go to church on Easter Sunday. Guess what? We gather every Sunday and worship a risen Savior. And we gather on Sunday because that's the day Jesus came out of the grave. And I just love, I love the fact that our Savior is not dead, that he's alive. I love the faith of the Cleveland Baptist Church. We unite around the fact that Jesus is coming back again someday. Boy, it could be today. It could be this week. The trumpet will sound, and the dead Christ will rise first. A few weeks ago, I was out at a cemetery, and I was helping to conduct a funeral service for a gentleman. and I stepped out of my car, and I made my way over to where the body was going to be located, and I looked to the left of me, and I saw a name I recognized, Etched in Stone. And I looked beyond that, and I saw another name that I recognized, and about three or four headstones, all of them with people that I grew up with who, I say I grew up with, they were much older than I was, but they had gone home to be with the Lord, prior to that point in time. And there they were, and I read their headstones. I didn't know they were buried there. And I thought to myself, boy, what a day that's going to be when the trumpet sounds, and those graves are gonna begin to stir, and the dead in Christ are gonna rise first, and then we, which are alive and remain, Paul wrote we. He thought he was gonna be alive when it happened. It wasn't Paul, but it might be us. We, which are alive and remain, we're gonna be caught up together to meet them in the clouds to ever be with the Lord. I'm thankful for the faith of the gospel that Jesus is coming again. I'm thankful for the faith that we unite together around of the work of the Holy Spirit. We're emphasizing that this year. By my spirit. If you'll allow the Holy Spirit to, he'll change your life. He'll change your home. He'll change your family. He'll change our church if we'll allow Him to. Oh, the work of the Holy Spirit. And we unite around the faith of the sanctification of the believer. In other words, listen, whatever your life was before you got saved, whatever your life was even last year at this point in time, it should be better today. There should be a work, a progressive work of sanctification in your life. And if that's not true, if you've actually gone backwards, then you know what? You need to stop going backwards and get right with God. And you start marching forward and start doing the right thing. So I love our faith. Why? Why? Because we came up with it? Because we feel superior? No, I love the faith because it's biblical. The things that I share with you are things that we get directly from this book. So I love the faith of Cleveland Baptist Church. Number two, I love the compassion of Cleveland Baptist Church. I love the compassion of Cleveland Baptist Church, so he says in verse three, remember without ceasing your work of faith and labor of love. I'm constantly encouraged by how this church loves. It's an amazing thing. This church, listen, this church is full of compassion. Every week, folks show the love of Christ in different avenues, in different ways. I thought to myself, every week, people show the love of Christ in a Christian school classroom. Every week, people show the love of Christ in a Sunday school classroom. with just a small collection of boys and girls or maybe teenagers or maybe even adults. They're attempting to show the love of Christ by teaching them God's word. Every week people show the love of Christ in a junior church or in a teen church setting. How about in a nursing home? I'm hearing all the time of folks being saved in a nursing home, and folks giving out Bibles in a nursing home, and ministering in a nursing home. Folks show the love of Christ on a bus route, on a cold bus, on a winter morning, or on a really hot bus, on a summer morning. People are showing the love of Christ every day. There are folks that visit the hospital from Cleveland Baptist Church, and they're ministering to people, and they're praying by people's bedside, and they're trying to help, and trying to encourage. And every day, people show the love of Christ in their community, in their neighborhood by doing little things, maybe mowing a neighbor's lawn, or maybe shoveling their driveway, or maybe just getting their mail for them when they're out of town, or taking their trash cans in. What little things that we can do to show the love of Christ in our community. Every day, people from this church go out and show the love of Christ in their workplace. It's a beautiful thing. The compassion of Cleveland Baptist Church. I hear from our folks going through trials how much love and concern they receive from other church members. It's incredible. Sometimes I'll go to a nursing home or I'll go to someone's house that's shut in or I'll go to a hospital and I'll walk in and one of the first things they'll want to show me, see all those cards on the wall? That's come from our church family and how that encourages and rejoices the heart. I love the compassion. of Cleveland Baptist Church. You know, when trials come and natural disasters unfold, this church rises to the occasion. I'll never forget the first days of COVID, when folks in this church looked after one another and cared for the needs of one another, not just collectively, and you folks responded so well in just doing what you could to encourage one another, but I'm talking about individually. I had folks come to me and just say, hey, listen, here's some money. Would you just give it to someone who maybe has lost their job during this period or someone who's really struggling? And what a delight it was for me to go to them and just say, hey, listen, someone anonymously just wanted you to be blessed with this. And it would just keep them afloat for another couple of weeks. Oh man, text messages that would be sent on Sunday morning when we couldn't gather. Hey listen, we wish we could be there, but we were just looking forward to hearing you preach online. Little things like that. I love the compassion of Cleveland Baptist Church. Number three, I love the hope of Cleveland Baptist Church. Would you look in verse three? He says, labor of love and your patience of hope. Why do we do these things? We do what we do because Christ has changed our lives. But not only that, but listen, not only has he changed our lives, but he's also forever altered our eternal destiny. I'm glad to know that this world and this life is not all there is. A better day is coming and I'm looking forward to that day. You heard Brother Hoffman say that one day you're going through life, one day you look in the mirror and there's somebody there you don't recognize. That's true. It's true, you think to yourself, where did that guy go, you know? Where did that person go that I remember as just a young person? And aren't you thankful that this life is not all there is? I think to myself of people that are, I mean, they're going through the same daily grind you and I are going through, and they have no hope. They have no hope of eternal life. They have no hope that there's anything beyond this life. I can't imagine life that way. I can't imagine how difficult it would be to live life without any hope that a better day is coming. I tell you, this hope provides us with patience, knowing that eternity with Christ awaits enables us to endure some difficulty down here. Here's the point, we get through it together. And what is waiting for us on the other side, according to Scripture, cannot be fully described. We do the best we can to try to put words around it, but I just gotta tell you, church family, what is waiting for us over there is beyond our human comprehension, and we're gonna enjoy it together. Number four, I love the perseverance of Cleveland Baptist Church. We look in verse number six. He says, and ye became followers of us and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction with joy of the Holy Ghost. You know, it hasn't always been easy, has it? We've had some difficult days. Every church has difficult, every family has difficult days. That's what we are, we're a family. We've had to endure some things. Some of our affliction maybe has been financial. Some of our affliction maybe has been the failure of others, people that we maybe looked to for leadership and thought that we could look up to them and that we could have some form of admiration for them. They've not always lived life the way that they should. Some of our affliction has been unreasonable or even unbiblical expectations. Some of our affliction has been physical challenges, sickness, premature sickness, unexpected death. Some of our affliction maybe has been growing pains, and we try to figure out how do we get along with folks that maybe are different from us, or see what God is doing here, God's growing us, maybe it's happening quicker than we can keep up with it, and God says that no matter what happens, God's people in this church have soldiered on and been faithful, and the work goes on. It's a beautiful thing, the perseverance of the Cleveland Baptist Church. I've said this so many times, but I've never felt stronger about it than I do today. The Cleveland Baptist Church is not great because of its founding pastor. The Cleveland Baptist Church is not great because of the fact that it's only had three pastors in almost 65 years. Can I be honest with you? Cleveland Baptist Church is great because of faithful people who come week after week, and they sit in these pews, and they worship the Lord, and they serve faithfully, and they give faithfully, and they're just there to support the work. That's what makes a great church. If you're counting on your pastor to make Cleveland Baptist Church great, we're gonna all fail together. I cannot possibly bear any type of that burden alone. But listen, if we'll all just dig in our heels and just say, you know what, no matter what comes our way, no matter what happens, we're going to be faithful. We're going to persevere. We're going to endure affliction. We're gonna do what God has called us to do. This church can be a great church. Number five, I love the example of Cleveland Baptist Church. Everywhere I go, I hear of folks who have heard of you. I'm talking about you. I'm talking about you, church family. I've watched, or I should say, everywhere I go, I hear folks who are watching you. Do you know, because of the miracle of technology, did you know that there are people all over this world that are watching our services? They're watching. They're listening to our choir sing. They're listening to our special music. They're listening to our announcements. They're listening to the preaching and the teaching. They're gonna hear the testimonies that were shared throughout this day. There are people that are watching. They're watching the example. In verse six he says, ye became followers of us and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction, with joy the Lord goes, look at verse number seven, so that ye were in samples to all that believe in Macedonia and Achaia. You know what he's saying there? He's saying, listen, Thessalonians, because of the way that you handled the affliction that came, because of the way that you persevered, because of the way that you kept the faith, you have become examples for everyone in that region that has heard of you, and this church is no different. I was in the Philippines two weeks ago, 8,000 miles away from here, and there are people who know of the Cleveland Baptist Church. There are people who know of Roy Thompson. There are people who know of Kevin Folger. There are people who know of even some of you who have served faithfully in this place. Listen, you are examples, not just in your neighborhood, and not just in your workplace, and not even just in your pew, but you're examples all over the world of what God has done in this place. Many churches that are seeking to reinvent themselves. But I want you to know, we don't need to reinvent what we're doing. We just need to keep doing what God has called us to do. He never changes. Why should we? We simply need to recommit to what we've done all these years. Number six, I love the evangelism of Cleveland Baptist Church. He says in verse number eight, 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. From this pulpit, From this property and from this people that are sitting here tonight, the message of the gospel has sounded out all over this region and all over the world. Through your giving, you help evangelize. Through your involvement, you help evangelize. With your life, you help evangelize. And through your intentional witness, you help us evangelize the lost world around us. You know, people know when we come to their door and we knock on their door, they know what they're gonna hear. They're gonna hear a Bible message. When we stand at their door, they know we aren't there to sell candy. We're not there to take a survey or a poll. We're not there to discuss the weather or politics. No, no, those people, they can expect that they're going to hear the gospel, because that's what it's all about. I love, I love the evangelism of this church. Now, there's room for improvement in all of these areas, but I'm thankful all these years that as a church, we've committed to these things. In years past, we've encouraged folks, and I love my church, Sunday, to give a special offering. Or to maybe make a commitment to give a special offering on this particular Sunday over the next several months. And I've told you this already, but we're not doing that this year. It doesn't mean we won't do it at some point in the future. But here's what we are gonna ask you to do. We're gonna ask you to do something. And what I believe we're gonna ask you to do is something far more important. than you taking some money out of your pocket and giving to a specific cause. Here's what I want you to give. I want you to give yourself. I want you to give yourself. Do you love your church? If so, would you be willing to commit to pass out 10 gospel tracts between now and next Sunday? Some of you, some of you, you could take 70 with you, and you could do 10 a day, no problem at all. Some of you, you're just wading out into this thing, and 10 is going to be a monumental effort. But do you love your church? Why don't you tell somebody about what the Lord has done in your life and in the life of your family? I think if we, again, took this seriously, we could hand out that many gospel tracts a day, but we're only asking you to do that in one week. In addition, I also want to ask you to use your influence online to express your love, first of all, for Christ, and then for his church. Would you be willing to go online and do one of two things, or maybe do both of them? Would you maybe pick a day this week and say, you know what, on one day this week, I'm gonna share my salvation testimony. I'm gonna let my followers, those people that are connected with me, hear about how I came to know Jesus Christ as my Savior. You see, we only had time to hear a few testimonies, but the truth of the matter is, if you're Savior tonight, you're part of this church, everybody in this church has a testimony. Every one of you could talk about how you came to Christ and what he's done in your life. Would you choose a day? One day, just type out a paragraph of how you came to know Christ as your Savior. And then would you maybe take a day and would you talk about what it is that the Lord is doing in your life through your church? Several years ago, my wife was connected with someone. They were disenchanted with the church that they were attending. It was not a gospel preaching church. The gospel was anywhere near the place. They had said something on their social media. They said something to the effect of, if you love your church, would you tell us about it? And my wife hopped on almost immediately, and she sent a text to this person, and she said, you know, this, that, and the other, and that person the following Sunday was here in our church with their whole family. Today that church, excuse me, today that family is still attending Cleveland Baptist Church. She and her husband were baptized here, and they're Children are growing up in this place. I'm just simply saying every one of you has some level of influence. If you're using social media, instead of complaining about the snow or complaining about your sports team or about your whatever, whatever the case might be, why don't you spend some time this week praising the Lord Jesus Christ and lifting up His church? Let folks know that you attend here, that you serve here, that you're ministered to here. These are tangible ways that you can express your love for our church, but at the same time express your love and devotion to our Savior. As we conclude tonight, would you also pray that the Lord will allow us to continue to multiply in the above areas until the trumpet sounds. We pray the Lord would help us to continue to be a compassionate place. Would you pray the Lord would help us to continue to cling to the faith that was delivered to us, that we've received from previous generations, more importantly we receive from this book. Would you pray the Lord would help us to continue to multiply in perseverance. and we just soldier on. There are going to be offenses, there are going to be challenging things, things that unfold in our lives. Let's pray together tonight that God would help us stay faithful until the trumpet sounds. I don't know when the trumpet is sounding, I don't know when Christ is coming back, but I know He is coming, and I want to be faithful until then, and I long for this church to be faithful until then as well.