First, Thessalonians. We'll look at chapter one tonight. We'll have a few folks come in from the first service there in the back. And I think they had a few people come in a little later due to work schedules and rain and whatever have you. But we're glad that everybody's here. But we'll have some of that crowd come in and take part of our service. First, Thessalonians chapter one. If you look with me there. I'll just pretty much preach out of this first chapter. And Thessalonians is one of those books. It's one of its main themes of the Bible. And anyone who studies the Bible seriously knows the main theme of the Bible is not the New Testament salvation. You think that it would be. It's not the church. It's not the sacraments. It's not the law of Moses or water baptism. But one of the most important things that you'll read about has the most verses is the second advent of Christ, Christ returning. That's the focal point of the New Testament, the day of our Lord. You say, well, salvation is really important. I'm not trying to undermine salvation. It certainly is. And I'm thankful for it, for sure. the main focal point of the New Testament is going to deal with the second advent of Christ, Christ returning. It needs to be fulfilled and so we'll see the Lord speak of this and especially in the book of Thessalonians. Thessalonians was one of the first epistles I believe that Paul ever wrote and to his Gentile converts now. And he wrote around AD 51 to AD 52, somewhere around there, and immediately after the events of, if you look at Acts chapter 19, you will find that this takes place right after Acts chapter 17 and so quite important. You're also going to see here in this first chapter that Paul expresses his gratitude for the believers in Thessalonica and he highlights their faith and their impact and commitment to God. And so despite facing the persecution and hardships that are here in this epistle, this young church had become remarkable towards its example of Christ and Christ's power to transform their lives and transform their ministry and the things that they had going on here at Thessalonica. Paul commends them for their faith. We're gonna see that here as we read. And not only their faith, which was, It was not deeply rooted in the things that they were saved out of. A lot of them worshipped idols. We're going to see that. They had a new root system, if you please, and that root system was tapped into Christ, the salvation. But also, they were noted for bearing their fruit, visible spiritual fruit, and influencing others far beyond their city that they were in. And I think IKEA is one of them, Macedonia. IKEA is mentioned here, I believe, in verse 7. This passage gives us a picture of a model church that exemplifies genuine faith, lasting fruit and steadfast faithfulness in God. So you say, well, what's in it for us? Well, what we get out of it, God calls every born again Christian to live a life of unwavering faith, to be fruitful and to be a witness for him and to have a steadfast hope in Christ. And so we're going to see that here tonight. Look at verse one with me. Paul and Silvanus and Timotheus unto the church of the Thessalonians, which is in God, the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Grace be unto you in 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, remembering without ceasing your work of faith, and your labor of love and your patience of hope in our Lord, Jesus Christ, in the sight of God and our father. And then verse four, knowing brethren beloved your election of God for your 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 ye became 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 all that believe in Macedonia and Ikea. For from you sounded out the word of the Lord, not only in Macedonia and Ikea, but also in every place your faith to God word is spread abroad so that we need not to speak anything. For they themselves show of us what manner of entering in we had unto you and how ye turn to God from idols to serve the living and 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. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, we bow before you tonight and thank you for this time. And Father, the time that we've set aside to not only meet with one another and to fellowship, but to sing songs of your work and of your grace and what you've done for us. And Father, we thank you for that. But just the moment to meet around your word and I pray that As we look at these verses, and Father, we look and reflect in our life, Father, where we have areas in our life that need growth, where our faith needs to be exercised. And Father, our lifestyle and our manner of life needs to be reflective of the gospel. And Father, I ask that you would bless those that have come out, bless their faithfulness. I thank you for them. And I ask that you would bless their day, bless their week, help them. Father, I ask that you would put a hedge of protection around our families and around every individual person that's representative here at Hope Baptist Church. Be with our ministries. I pray you continue to bless them. And Father, give us the wisdom and understanding to work where we need to work, to minister, to preach, to teach, or just to be a blessing to your folks and to the world that we witness to. Be with our message tonight. Be with me. Fill me with your Holy Spirit, I pray. We get something from your word. We ask all this in Jesus Christ's name we pray, amen. So here we quickly read through the verses that we have here. I believe 10 verses. I wanna look first of all at the church's faith. Let's look at the church's faith. And you'll notice this as he begins to write in verse two through five, and we'll see some things, three things about this church's faith. And we're gonna see their faith, the praise of their faith. He's gonna praise their faith in verse two. He says, we give thanks to God always for you all making mention of you in our prayers. What we see here is Paul and Silas and Timothy express gratitude for the Thessalonians faith, which is evident in their prayers and remembrance of Paul and his interaction with them. Keep in mind. that there were a lot of Gentiles here at Thessalonica, and these are the converts, but they were noted, and it was the church's faith that he wanted to bring up. Not only is he praising them, but also they have a proof of their faith. Look at verse three, and we see that they had proof of their faith, and what was that? Well, he says, remembering without ceasing, notice with me, your work of faith. your work of faith and labor of love and patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ and in the sight of God and in our Father. Their work of faith and labor of love and patience of hope demonstrated genuine faith in Christ. It's easy to say, well, I have faith in God, but when you begin to say, well, your labor of faith, our labor of faith is something completely different than what we say. And so here he was He was mentioning this church's faith through their work and their labor, not only just your work of faith, but your labor of love. Your labor, sometimes it is a labor of love. You say, well, love, I didn't know love was labors. Labor, it could be, it can be, and a lot of times it is. A sacrificial love is. There's some labor intent, but he goes on and he says, hope in our Lord Jesus Christ, a patience of hope. So this was their proof of their faith in Christ. As we look, we reflect on our church and we look, well, what is the labor, what is the work of our faith, what is the labor of our love? And we, there are certain things that we will do tonight, we're There's people in the back working with individuals or praying with individuals or helping them through some difficulties in their life. And that is a work of faith. That is a labor of love. And it's going to take some patience of hope to get that done. It's not done overnight. It's not done in a week and it's not done in a month, but it's done over time. And God does a work. and he will do work, but the proof of that, the proof of how is it really working, they had a proof of their faith, and we see in verse three. So we see this church's faith, but there's something else. Look at verse five, we see the power of the gospel. It wasn't in a number of things. A lot of times I'll run through my litany list of things. It wasn't in their programs, it wasn't in their music, it wasn't in their, this or that or this, it was the power come from the gospel. And he says in verse 5, for our gospel came not, you say, what is that? That is found in 1 Corinthians chapter 15, and it defines and outlines what the gospel is. It's the death, it's the burial and resurrection of Jesus Christ. And he says, for our gospel came not unto you in word only. Now notice what he says here about this gospel But it come also, not only by word, but also in power. There was power connected to this gospel, and there still is power connected to that gospel. Now there are other gospels that are preached and teached in the world in religion, but you'll find something if you look carefully. If you're a student and love God, you'll find that some of them do not have power connected with them. They do not have the Holy Spirit connected with them. They have a spirit, but not the Holy Spirit. Here he was defining what gospel they had, and he says, it wasn't given to you, it didn't come unto you in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Ghost and in much assurance, as ye know what manner of men we were among you for your sake. So we see this this power of the gospel, this come by the Holy Spirit and assurance, but it showed a strong foundation of faith. And let me say this, if you have a gospel that doesn't have faith or good faith or a gospel that is true, you won't have strong faith. It'll be weak. It'll be watered down. There won't be any power to it, amen, other than what you can generate. out of man in his energy, but not the power of the Holy Spirit. And it certainly won't have assurance. Imagine believing in a gospel tonight that doesn't have much assurance in what it's preaching to you. Well, we're not certain if we have salvation. We're not certain if we have a home in heaven. We're not certain even if this Bible is truly God's word. We don't know that for certain. You say, do they really say that? Oh yeah, you need to get out a little bit. Oh yeah. And to me, it kind of undermines everything you're doing if you're saying or spouting that, or teaching something like that. Here, Paul's not stating that at all. He's stating in verse five, look at it, for our gospel. Came not unto you in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Ghost and in the much assurance, as you know what manner of men we were among you for your sake. So we see the church's faith, but there's something else we see. If you look at verse six and on down, we see the church's fruit. And tonight, I didn't give you the title, but we're gonna look at faith, fruit, and faithfulness. So we're gonna see this church's faith, which we just looked at. We're gonna see their fruit, which we're going to look at, and their faithfulness. And so here, If you look at the church's fruit, look at verse 6. Now 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. Now there's a lot that's said here, and under this we see, number one, a pattern in their living. These saints became followers of Paul, and the Lord, and they received the word in affliction, yet in joy." They were in much affliction. They were being persecuted. By the way, if you go on and read, not only 1 Thessalonians, but 2, you'll find that they thought they were in the tribulation. Kind of like some religion teaches right now. We're in the tribulation. I worked for a lady a number of years ago. I'm going to say probably seven or eight years ago. I'd say at least that. Wonderful lady. She was a very, very religious lady. And she had kindly begin to try to like proselyte me. witness to me and I chuckled and I would listen but I figured I will listen and also I would begin to witness and use the Word of God and as God give me opportunity and we certainly did and my brother and I got to tag team a little bit on that but we prayed and God hopefully shed some light there. She never received Christ, but one of the things that she was afraid of, and she was selling her home or a condominium that she owned, and she was moving to a particular place in the United States, and it was a compound. And she was moving there because they had entered in to the tribulation, and the folks that she was following and listening to had advised her to move to this certain compound. And of course, I had to ask the question at some point of three or four weeks working there and doing odds and ends for her. And she was a lovely lady to work for, don't get me wrong, but very religious, but didn't know the Lord Jesus Christ in a free pardon of sin, not personally. Everything was steeped around this religion. And I eventually worked around and I asked her, I said, well, Does it cost money to live in this compound? What I wanted to ask her is, how much money are you paying or are they taking from you? She was a wealthy person, and we eventually kind of round got that. She said, yeah, no, it's thousands of dollars to live there. It's really expensive there, really expensive. And they were fleecing her, basically what was going on. And we told her, look, be careful. And she kept saying, we're in the tribulation, we're in the tribulation. And I said, well, how long is the tribulation? It's seven years, we're in the tribulation. I would love to give her a call and ask her, how is she doing? Is she still here? Because it's been more than seven years. And I chuckle when you say, well, it's not really, shouldn't be laughable, but there are people who believe that, very religious. know a lot about the Bible, but not really the true gospel. They don't have the power, they don't have the Holy Spirit, the light of the Holy Spirit and the guidance of the Holy Spirit. But there are people who will still believe that the Thessalonians were a group of people who thought they were in the great tribulation, in the tribulation time. And so you want to be mindful of this. This is one of the books people ask, well, what book of the Bible should I read first? A lot of times we'll say John or we'll say the book of Romans. But if you get to really thinking about it, the book of Romans is pretty deep, doctrinally deep. And you've got to really follow what John is saying. There's a lot of truth in it. But 1 Thessalonians is a very safe book to have a young convert begin to read. 1 and 2 Thessalonians is a very good book for that. And tonight we're looking at this church. We've looked at its faith and we see what Paul has said about their faith and their genuine faith that they had in God, but we also see the church's fruit. And so this church, they had a pattern. And the pattern in their living was, yeah, they were in affliction. Look at verse six with me. He says, and ye became followers of us and of the Lord. You say, well, I just follow the Lord. Well, here's what happens with that. You're going to get self-deceived. God give passers, teachers, and evangelists. Well, I don't trust anybody. Well, you've probably had a bad experience with several bad people you've been around. Not everybody has your best interest at heart. Not everybody that says they're a preacher or an evangelist or a pastor loves this book, loves God more than they love your money and love deceiving people. And so if you get caught up with one of those type of people, you're going to think that, well, anything that has to do with God or the Word of God is not right. And you're wrong. You're wrong. It's wrong thinking because of what the Bible says. And he says here, and ye became followers of us. and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction with joy of the Holy Ghost." We see the pattern, a pattern in their living. We see not only their pattern, but look at their faith. We see this, their proclamation of faith. Look at verse seven. So that ye were examples to, what's it say there? All that believe in Macedonia and Ikea, if you look at the region of where they're at, that's pretty far away from where they're at. Their witness, their testimony, if you please, their proclamation, let me get it spit out there, the proclamation of the gospel is evident. And that's what he's saying in verse seven. This is the fruit, this is the fruit of this church. And so we see that their living, their pattern of living was sound in the faith. and that their proclamation of their faith was true. They were known for how they were living for God. And so we see not only that, but look at the gospel now. Look at verse eight. Let's read verse eight. For from you sounded out the word of the Lord. You mean they weren't undercover agents? They kind of look like the world, act like the world, talk like the world, live like the world, but they're a Christian. Nope, it says, for from you sounded out the word of the Lord. They were not only living it, but they were actually sharing it and sharing it with people. Now watch, he's gonna say something about it. He said, not only in Macedonia and Ikea, not only in the two that we mentioned, but also in every place your faith to God word is spread abroad so that we need not speak anything. Imagine going down to Milan and passing out a track and say, I've already got a track for today. I already know how to come to Christ. I had brother so-and-so lead me to the Lord from Hope Baptist Church. You go on down to the gas station a few minutes later and you pass out a track there. And that person, look, I go to Hope Baptist Church, or whatever. The gospel's getting out, and anybody you meet knows where that church is at, or what they're preaching, or the gospel, or knows Christ. That's what he's saying here. And this church, this young church, this church had fruit, and you see it by the propagation of the gospel. You say, well, what is in for us tonight? How are we promoting the gospel? How are we at proclaiming the gospel? How are we at living the gospel? You say, well, there's not a lot of preaching. You go back, even before I was preaching and teaching, there's a lot preached on how you should live the gospel. There's a lot on how you should witness with the gospel. And there's a lot on promoting the gospel. You'll notice we kind of is geared to promoting the gospel, not associations, not programs. They're not bad, they can be used, but that's not what we're promoting. We're promoting the gospel, the death, burial and resurrection of Christ and Jesus Christ in him crucified. So I can do that better if I give somebody a hotdog. Have at it, but your main priority is the gospel. He wasn't talking about their hotdog giving. He wasn't talking about their singings that they have. He wasn't talking about them doing whatever. It was about them sharing the gospel with the lost world. You say, why don't we, why don't churches use this pattern? Well, the churches of today say that doesn't work anymore. You know, back to the point of do they have faith? Do they have faith in Christ and his word and what he's actually written? Well, I think, I just think I can think about a little bit better, a little bit smarter than what was being written here. Well, I don't know about that. Let's stick with God's word. And he's saying here that this fruit found in this young church was evident. It was evident. The church definitely had fruit. The church had faith. And then we see thirdly something else. Look at verse nine with me. We see the church's faithfulness. Now I know I'm speaking to the choir tonight because everybody here is Wednesday night. And you know what I say about Sunday morning, Sunday night and Wednesday night. Sunday morning tells you what? How popular your church is in the community. If you attend Sunday morning, that's the popularity of your church. Sunday night, those that come Sunday night tells you what? How popular your pastor is. And then Wednesday night are those who Love God. I heard some pastors say that. I know it's kind of quiet in here, but that's about the truth. You hear me say three to thrive. Why is there three? Well, there's a reason why there's a three. We're going to look at it here tonight, one of the reasons. Number three, the church's faithfulness. How's your faithfulness to God? Oh, my faithfulness to God is rock solid. Amen. Look at verse nine with me here in our text. The Bible says, for they themselves show of us what manner of entering in we had unto you. And how ye turn, say with me, to who? God, from idols to serve. Not to worship, not to be counted as these brethren over here versus I'm no longer part of that brethren over here. I have turned from my idols and what I once was in, and that's whether that was religion, whether that was your work and money, mammon, or whether that was whatever you were wrapped up in, you turn from to God. You turn to God from idols to serve what? The living and true God. The problem with our day Christianity is Christians still are attached to the idols. They haven't come from them. They'll use him for God, they'll twist him, turn him, set him up over here, but it's the same idol, it's the same God, and they'll bow to that when they need to, and they'll only bow to God when they want to. Oh no, no, no. Oh yes. Oh yes. Not good church people. Oh yes. Yes, look at verse nine with me. Again, he says, for they themselves show of us what manner of entering in we had unto you, and how ye turned to God from your idols to serve the living and true God. And watch verse 10, and to wait for his son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead, even Jesus, which delivered us from the wrath to come." You ever get the thought, get to hanging around the wrong person, not reading your Bible, maybe your relation, your vertical relationship just kind of suffering a little bit and you begin to think, I wonder if God is really coming back. Do they really have that right? I hear that preacher say that, I hear the other preacher say that, and I turn on this preacher and he's saying that the Lord's coming back, but is he really coming back? Well, notice what Paul tells him in verse 10. and to wait, we're to patiently wait for his son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead. We're not waiting on death. I know some of us might think that's what's going, we're not waiting on it, we're not waiting on the antichrist. I know some brethren think that's what they're waiting on. And they'll spend more energy reading, watching, and listening on some Antichrist thing rather than the Lord Jesus Christ and his words. We're not waiting on the tribulation. Oh, now you're really meddling. No, I'm just speaking truth. We'll talk more about the tribulation and about the Antichrist and about death more than about waiting for his son from heaven. Where we see things rise and fall in the political arena, that doesn't really, for the child of God, that means nothing. Because God is the one that sets that up and he monitors it. It doesn't matter who's, I'm thankful for who got it, amen. Don't get me wrong now, don't go sideways on me, but I'm just saying, if your sufficiency is in the political movement and what's going on, you're about 254, 253 years behind. We're a young country, a young nation. We think we have all that in a bag of chips. We're not. God could destroy America just like that, and there would be no more USA. We have more pride than we do understanding. We have more haughtiness than we have wisdom, godly wisdom. And so we'll think our good times is because who got, I'm telling you, our sufficiency should be in Jesus Christ. And he says in verse 10, and to wait for his son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead. Just in case you, we just, somebody's just struggling with the point of, did he really rise? Did he really come out of the grave? He did. Even who? You mean Yahweh? You mean Jehovah? No, he says Jesus. Same person, by the way, which is gonna tell you what he did for you and I, amen? And he'll do for anybody that's a whosoever will that will come unto him. He says, which delivered us from the wrath to come. What wrath is that? Well, there's a lot of wrath coming. That's why I think this Sunday morning we preached on the judgment A divine judgment. Here we're seeing the church's faithfulness in a few things here. And he wants to encourage them. Number one, look at verse nine again. I kind of got off of my notes. We see their faithfulness in turning from their idols. They turned to God from idols demonstrating a faithful commitment to serve the living and true God. Some of us haven't even done that. We're saved, amen, we're going to heaven. But we haven't committed to be faithful to God in our lives, in our families, in our dealings, in our workings, and the things that God's blessed us with. We'll use our talents and our gifts in other places other than where God has you, amen? And so here they were turning from their idols. Secondly, we see in verse 10, the church's faithfulness and trusting in Christ's return. We just read that. Their hope is firmly in Jesus, not the Antichrist, not the tribulation. And why it's said is because they thought they might be in the tribulation. And what had happened is they were being taught wrong. Thirdly, we see in verse 10 a testimony of transformation. Their changed lives bear witness to a lasting faithfulness. If you get around a Christian, they sound good, they look good for four or five years, and all of a sudden they just begin to peter out. Next thing you know, they're not even in church. And they've got some, there's some excellent, there's some excellent excuses, legit excuses. But they're just that, they're excuses. They say, what's going on? Well, here, it's a testimony. You have a testimony of a transformation in your life. God doesn't save a person. He doesn't rebirth somebody spiritually and then leave them hanging. They say, well, you're born. Let's put you over there and let somebody else take care of you. Satan will take you every time. So God begins to work in your life and begin to change you, begin to grow, hopefully. and you become steadfast in the gospel and in God's word. And so these converts had done that and they had a testimony of the transformation power. Do you realize there's preachers and teachers and religions that teach that not everybody gets that transformation power when they get saved? It might change your life, but it might not have the power to change that person's life. Then you got the flip side coin. You got the brethren who think, well, when you get saved, everything changes. And if it doesn't change, you're not saved. That's an easy way out. Come on, you know what I'm talking about. So this church, they were noted for their faithfulness, the testimony of transformation of the power of God. And this first chapter, man, he begins to look and he begins to, commend them for their faithfulness tonight. Let me ask you, what areas of your faith need to be strengthened? Maybe you're saying tonight, there isn't any area, I am good to go. Well, lying would be one of those areas you could work on. Let me ask you again, are you producing fruit that blesses God and others? So I'm producing a lot of fruit, but are you producing fruit for God and others rather than self? Let me ask this, do others see Jesus Christ through your life? I just don't think that's that important. It might not be to you at the moment that important, but I can assure you there is somebody that is resting in you, kind of like what these brethren begin to do. He says they were followers of us and of the Lord, but there'll be somebody that's watching what you're doing or what you're not doing for Christ. And again, the question is, is your life Is it a good example for those that are watching what you're doing and how you're living? Might not seem important to you at all, but to that individual or those individuals, it's very important to them. And it might be the determining factor in the way or course they choose for their life, i.e. the young children, the young people. Let me ask this, do they see the joy of the Lord in your life and in your heart? Or is it a woe is me, I have to go to church or I have to read my Bible because the preacher says it's good or I guess I should pray. It's the last thing I have, the last resort. The doctor says there's no hope, so I guess I should be praying. And there's no joy at all. I love God. Oh, I love God. Yeah, but what that sends is a strong signal to those watching you that it's not that important and you don't have joy. It's kind of more like a duty or like a chore. You remember those? We have chores. Let me ask you tonight, do they see your steadfastness in God? So I'm here. It's not just being here and I'm thankful that you're here. That encourages me. That helps my faith. but not just coming because it's a duty or a chore. The steadfastness is a genuineness reflection of your heart towards God. That's where it should come and if your faithfulness is being stemmed from your energy or you're just naturally that way, wake up at five every morning, you drink a certain amount of coffee every morning, you read the same five chapters or the same two verses or you wear the same clothes on Tuesday and then Wednesday you wear, you're that type of person, you're orderly. I like that by the way, I'm speaking of myself. but the heart can be far from God and not have true steadfastness in your love, genuine love for Christ. See, I don't have that, but I don't have that. That's some of the areas that we could work on. Tonight, I don't know where you're at. Where's your faith? Where's your fruit and your faithfulness to God? Let's stand up and ask Brother Jeff if he, he'll have a song here for us just in a moment. So a lot of times my faith is weak. And there's many a times and during the day with what I'm dealing with, my faith seems fragile. It seems brittle. It's thin. I would not consider it thick. I would consider it thin or maybe anemic. So what do I do? You're going to need a well of spiritual water to draw from. It's gonna be the word of God. It's gonna be a relationship with Jesus Christ. And if your faith is thin or weak, anemic, I encourage you to get in God's word and begin to ask God to fill that tank, your faith tank, back up. So my fruit, that really bothers me. I've never been one to bear much fruit. I really don't know how. You think of a fruit tree and sometimes they can be very finicky, but you think of the tillage and the digging around and disturbing of the ground and then the nutrients and everything that needs to be put in in place so the root system of that tree can begin to produce fruit. There will be limbs and there'll be all different types of things on that fungus disease that will need to be mended, taken care of, or healed on that tree before it begins to properly bear fruit. We need to be fruit bearers for Christ and we should be. And then faithfulness, man, is it a drudgery? It's like, man, I just dread this. Our burden for God and the things of God and the ministry of God is just lacking. Maybe you begin to pray to God to bring back the burden of that true steadfastness of faithfulness with God. Let's sing a verse, Brother Jeff.